On Monday 01 September 2008 16:07:50 Verner Kjærsgaard wrote: ...

I nearly always go with Brother Lasers, both colour and b/w. - the do a thing they call BrotherScript a ka postscript. This has proven to work flawlessly on just any Linux distro I throw in.

Same here. Brother HL2700 colour laser. Pay more for the printer, pay half price per sheet for the toner, if you care to do the maths. Works like a treat on openSUSE 10.3 and 11, 32 and 64 bit. Diego -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 3:14 AM, Johannes Meixner wrote:

Regarding HP:

HP is currently the only manufacturer who provides a free software driver package for printers and all-in-one devices which we provide since a very long time in Suse Linux and openSUSE, see http://hplip.sourceforge.net/

Carefully check http://hplip.sourceforge.net/supported_devices/index.html in particular http://hplip.sourceforge.net/supported_devices/unsupported.html

Correction: HP is the only manufacturer which provides a driver package with a license agreement that is compabible with the openSUSE license, hence it can be included on the install DVD. Brother, which I mentioned in my last post, provide drivers at no cost (not even ask for an email address) in RPM format. 1 RPM for SANE scanner drivers and another RPM for CUPS printer drivers. Install the RPM and no further configuration is needed. I've tested these for various printers under 10.1, 10.3 & 11.0 and they all work, except for 64-bit distros needing to move a single file from /usr/lib... to /usr/lib64... I think you should clarify when you post "free" what exactly that word means in your context. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 3:35 AM, Johannes Meixner wrote:

...

I think you should clarify when you post "free" what exactly that word means in your context.

What "free software" means (I didn't write only "free", I wrote explicitely "free software") in particular in the context of GNU/Linux is perfectly clear.

Well it's not free Hardware, it's not free Beer, it's not a free Airplane, it's obviously software. There really isn't any other way to describe it. I think it's obvious I understood the meaning of your posting -- but others might not know what precisely you meant by "free."

In particular the Brother driver is no free software and therefore a Brother printer which needs this driver cannot work out-of-the-box for Suse Linux or openSUSE simply because we cannot provide the driver "in the box" so that the user must manually download and install it.

For example this driver does not install well on all hardware architectuers in contrast to free software which we provide "in the box", read http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Information_for_Printer_Manufacturers_Regarding_L...

"this driver" Which driver is that?

Of course you are free to buy whatever proprietary hardware and use whatever proprietary driver you like - except you have a support contract with us - then it depends on the particular proprietary driver if it might even invalidate certain parts of the support contract (e.g. a proprietary kernel module might invalidate support for kernel issues).

When you use a proprietary driver you can ask only where you got the proprietary stuff for support or for a driver package for non-Intel-32-bit platforms (often a simple move doesn't help - e.g. see the IScan mess for 64-bit).

If I am not mistaken that issue is with Epson hardware. I did not post regarding Epson hardware. With the Brother hardware the solution is indeed "a simple move.". I never said that is the case for every piece of software that does not work on a 64-bit distribution.

Therefore please do not recommend proprietary stuff here without an explicite note that it is proprietary stuff.

And please don't tout HP as being the *ONLY* hardware vendor "who provides a free software driver package" without an explicit notice that you mean "free as in liberty" and not "free as in beer." The ironic thing is HP provides such great Linux drivers yet their Windows drivers are quite possibly the worst. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Hello, On Sep 3 11:23 Roger Oberholtzer wrote (shortened):

On Wed, 2008-09-03 at 04:33 -0400, Andrew Joakimsen wrote:

...

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 3:35 AM, Johannes Meixner wrote:

...

...

I think you should clarify when you post "free" what exactly that word means in your context.

What "free software" means (I didn't write only "free", I wrote explicitely "free software") in particular in the context of GNU/Linux is perfectly clear.

Perhaps it should be called 'open source'/ 'closed source' instead of 'free'/'proprietary'.

Strictly speaking "open source" is not necessarily "free software" but "free software" implies "open source (code)". To maximise the "Confusion of tongues": "Free software" is of course not "freeware". For example the Brother driver is "freeware" which is neither "free software" nor "open source software". But we are off-topic. Kind Regards Johannes Meixner -- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany AG Nuernberg, HRB 16746, GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org