On Dec 30, 2024, Kleene, Steven (kleenesj) wrote: > On December 7, 2024 4:21 PM, I wrote: > > > If you are able, please recommend a black-and-white Postscript laser > > printer that will work well with Debian (Bookworm). ... > > With advice from the group, I bought a Brother DCP-L2640DW driverless > monochrome printer/scanner. I run the fvwm window manager and can > print with lp and scan with xsane. I never installed the Brother > printer, scanner, or BR-Script3 drivers..
I've done that before, through the IIRC lprng package. Needed to edit /etc/printcap as I recall... > > So I'm mostly happy, but I can't say I really understand who's doing what. > Here are three questions. > > 1. Formerly (but still Bookworm), I had an HP LaserJet 5MP connected > with a USB-to-parallel adapter. I saw this character special device:A > > crw-rw---- 1 root lp 180, 1 Dec 3 08:53 /dev/usb/lp1 > > I would typically print with something like "cat file > /dev/usb/lp1". > Now, though, with the new laser and a straight USB connection (no > wireless), I see these in /dev/usb: > > crw------- 1 root root 180, 0 Dec 3 08:53 /dev/usb/hiddev0 > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9796 Dec 21 13:01 /dev/usb/lp1 Er, /dev/usb/lp1 in this instance isn't a character device. > > 2. I have a virtualbox Windows XP machine. With the HP printer, it > worked through CUPS and needed to find /dev/lp0. So I just made a > symbolic link from that to /dev/usb/lp1. XP had a driver for the old > HP. Now, though, the devices and the printer have changed. In XP, I > can choose from a long list of prehistoric printer drivers. Does that > even matter with a driverless printer? I also suspect the new device > stub won't work from XP. I don't really need to print from XP, but it > was sometimes convenient. Chances are XP won't be able to print to it directly -- you'll likely need to work around the outdated VM's lack of capabilities and "Print to PDF" or otherwise send the document to the host machine for printing. > > 3. With xscan, the scan quality is good enough for most purposes. But > when I tested some fine engraving (like a dollar bill), it was less > sharp than I get with my old Epson Perfection 2400 (from 2004). In > both cases I asked for 300 dpi and set JPG quality as high as > possible. The Brother at 600 dpi didn't match the Epson at 300 dpi. > Would installing the Brother scanner driver be an improvement, or is > this just a limitation of the hardware? Good job, posting to the world that you're trying to create counterfeit bills. ;) It is intentional that scanners don't do well on currency (though IME, they tend to just go "no" instead of creating low-res output). It is quite possible that Epson's control of it was in their (Windows?) driver software, rather than in the hardware/firmware; whereas 20 years later, Brother's put it in the printer internals. -- |_|O|_| |_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert |O|O|O| PGP: DDAB 23FB 19FA 7D85 1CC1 E067 6D65 70E5 4CE7 2860
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