Solved A good choice for a colour laser?

exeter

exeter

Tricky? Cheap to buy vs cheap to run. How many prints a day? Double sided printing? Postscript vs PCL. I guess there's no one right answer. Recommendations WITH Justification. The best answer wins a solid gold Rolls Royce.
 
Very generally speaking...HP is usually easy to use with FreeBSD, there will be Linux PPD drivers that will work with FreeBSD. They charge a great deal for their toners. You might be able to find generic ones that work--HP keeps trying to stop that but as far as I know it can still be done.

Brother is also going to be a decent choice. Again, they usually have Linux drivers that can be used with FreeBSD. I think their toners are less expensive too. I don't know if generic ones are available or not.
 
Of late, I have been getting warnings that cups is moving away from ppd's.
https://www.phoronix.com/news/CUPS-3.0-Architecture-Overhaul

CUPS 3.0 is a major architecture overhaul with moving away from PPD files and just relying on IPP Everywhere, splitting local printing from network printing support, and various other design improvements.
Click to expand...

Upstream cups broke using foomatic-rip with ppd's as a filter. For my Brother HL-5450DN this mainly provided provide paper handling and tray selection - the ppd essentially translated a common command (Manual Feed) into something my printer understood. I personally can't fathom how this function can be cast aside given the large number of manufacturers, add-on trays and printer languages.

Fortunately, the HL-5450DN is postscript capable. I went back to the old lpd spooler and tray select directly on the printers web interface.
2024 Edit: You can still use *ppd files with the HP jetdirect port, :9100.
 
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Thankyou all. You'll be SHOCKED to hear that the solid gold Rolls Royce was won my, err, niece.
 
Well, after two years I finally got there. I'm the proud owner of a Brother HL-L8260CDW[1]. Second hand off of that Ebay, with a broken fuser unit. Ordered a replacement off of Aliexpress, a five minute job to swap. All good. Installed via the CUPS web interface. I needed a ppd file so I looked in the file system of one of my Linux systems and wrangled it into my home subdirectory/folder. As usual there was a printer not found error. It's something do do with '.local' getting added to the printer URL. To fix that I used the 'modify printer' function and changed the type to 'JetDirect' with an address of 'socket://192.168.0.13:9100'. Remember to set the printer name to something simple (colour_laser). Sorted.

To print to it from the command line:
$ /usr/local/bin/lp -d colour_laser filename.pdf

[1] Generic toner cartridges are easily available from several suppliers.
 
I'm glad it helped. I keep meaning to try it on my wife's Mac at her exercise studio, as the Mac says it has no driver for her 12 or so year old HP printer.
 
scottro said:
I'm glad it helped. I keep meaning to try it on my wife's Mac at her exercise studio, as the Mac says it has no driver for her 12 or so year old HP printer.
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Apple bought CUPs in 2002 so if you're wife's Mac is not a relic, it should be fairly easy. The other unknown is the Printer Language used by the 12 year old HP printer.

If
Postscript - you should be good to go for basic printing

If
PCLx -> Installing ghostscript on MacOS

If ZjStream wire protocol -> Installing HP Color Laserjet drivers - Apple

On my Brother HL-5450 a firmware update enabled the universal print everywhere driver but at the expense of some printing capabilities. I ended up reverting firmware.
 
shepper, the Mac is new. I even called Apple support eventually getting to a supervisor who said that the latest Macs no longer had support for that printer. I don't remember the model of the printer, but it is around 12-15 years old.
 
Alain De Vos "Sometimes no cups ppd file is available.". You can make your own ppd as long as you know the Printer language. For example, if a Brother HL-2270DW can use a PCL6 based ppd.
Using the HL-2270DW as an example:
Specifications | HL-2270DW

Printer Emulation = PCL6.

scottro If you have the make/model of the HP, they also publish the Printer Languages that work:
Example HP-3001DW specs

Unless Apple has removed JetDirect port 9100 from the interface or HP is using a GDI driver, it should be doable.
 
Getting a ppd file? I did it by searching the file system on a Linux Mint system which was already using the printer. It was here: /etc/cups/ppd/Brother_HL_L8260CDW_series.ppd. I wrangled it into my home directory. I seem to recall there was some moaning from the operating system about permissions, but I sorted that with a few blows from the chmod stick. Since I was installing the printer over the network, not on the FreeBSD system, the ppd could be used in the browser interface to CUPS. I did have to change the address of the printer after installation using the 'modify printer' interface as CUPS is still adding the '.local' extension to printer addresses. As I recall I changed the printer type to Jetdirect with an address of socket://192.168.0.13:9100. Of course the foregoing only works for users with a Linux system on their network. If anyone has any ideas about better ways to get the required .ppd I like to hear them.
 
shepper said:
Apple bought CUPs in 2002 so if you're wife's Mac is not a relic, it should be fairly easy. The other unknown is the Printer Language used by the 12 year old HP printer.

If
Postscript - you should be good to go for basic printing

If
PCLx -> Installing ghostscript on MacOS

If ZjStream wire protocol -> Installing HP Color Laserjet drivers - Apple

On my Brother HL-5450 a firmware update enabled the universal print everywhere driver but at the expense of some printing capabilities. I ended up reverting firmware.
Click to expand...
Apple started using cups in 2002. Apple acquired cups Feb 2007.
 
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