Deskjet 5650 driver selection

[TJ]

Bob Headrick, I think I need your expertise.

A few days ago I picked up a Deskjet 5650 at a church bag sale,
essentially for free. I took it as a potential backup for my primary
printer, a PSC 2110, because they both happen to use the same ink
cartridges. There was no power supply with it, but I found a new one on
Ebay, bringing the cost up to $15, but still cheap all things considered.

It powered up and installed without incident in Mandriva Linux, as far
as the CUPS driver is concerned (Mandriva selected the DJ 5000 series
hplip driver), but Gutenprint, the print utility for The GIMP, is a
different matter. Gutenprint uses its own drivers, and the DJ 5650 isn't
on the list, nor is the 5000. The nearest numbers on the list are the DJ
5550 and the 5551. I did a plain paper test with the 5551 driver, and it
looks OK, but I'm wondering if it's the best choice. Is there another HP
printer that would be closer to the 5650?

TJ

 

[Bob Headrick]

Bob Headrick, I think I need your expertise.

A few days ago I picked up a Deskjet 5650 at a church bag sale, [snip]
It powered up and installed without incident in Mandriva Linux, as far as
the CUPS driver is concerned (Mandriva selected the DJ 5000 series hplip
driver), but Gutenprint, the print utility for The GIMP, is a different
matter. Gutenprint uses its own drivers, and the DJ 5650 isn't on the
list, nor is the 5000. The nearest numbers on the list are the DJ 5550 and
the 5551. I did a plain paper test with the 5551 driver, and it looks OK,
but I'm wondering if it's the best choice. Is there another HP printer
that would be closer to the 5650?

I would expect that any of the Deskjet 5xxx or 6xxx drivers would give the
same results, as for this series of printers most of the image processing is
actually done in the printer, including the image rendering and different
modes for different paper types and quality selections. I am not familiar
with Gutenprint, but
http://hplip.sourceforge.net/supported_devices/inkjet.html lists the same
underlying driver for all these printers. (Sourceforge is supported by HP.)

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

 

[measekite]

Bob Headrick, I think I need your expertise.

A few days ago I picked up a Deskjet 5650 at a church bag sale, [snip]
It powered up and installed without incident in Mandriva Linux, as
far as the CUPS driver is concerned (Mandriva selected the DJ 5000
series hplip driver), but Gutenprint, the print utility for The GIMP,
is a different matter. Gutenprint uses its own drivers, and the DJ
5650 isn't on the list, nor is the 5000. The nearest numbers on the
list are the DJ 5550 and the 5551. I did a plain paper test with the
5551 driver, and it looks OK, but I'm wondering if it's the best
choice. Is there another HP printer that would be closer to the 5650?

I would expect that any of the Deskjet 5xxx or 6xxx drivers would give
the same results, as for this series of printers most of the image
processing is actually done in the printer, including the image
rendering and different modes for different paper types and quality
selections. I am not familiar with Gutenprint, but
http://hplip.sourceforge.net/supported_devices/inkjet.html lists the
same underlying driver for all these printers. (Sourceforge is
supported by HP.)

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

That is the only endearing quality that HP has these days.

 

[TJ]

Bob Headrick, I think I need your expertise.

A few days ago I picked up a Deskjet 5650 at a church bag sale, [snip]
It powered up and installed without incident in Mandriva Linux, as far
as the CUPS driver is concerned (Mandriva selected the DJ 5000 series
hplip driver), but Gutenprint, the print utility for The GIMP, is a
different matter. Gutenprint uses its own drivers, and the DJ 5650
isn't on the list, nor is the 5000. The nearest numbers on the list
are the DJ 5550 and the 5551. I did a plain paper test with the 5551
driver, and it looks OK, but I'm wondering if it's the best choice. Is
there another HP printer that would be closer to the 5650?

I would expect that any of the Deskjet 5xxx or 6xxx drivers would give
the same results, as for this series of printers most of the image
processing is actually done in the printer, including the image
rendering and different modes for different paper types and quality
selections. I am not familiar with Gutenprint, but
http://hplip.sourceforge.net/supported_devices/inkjet.html lists the
same underlying driver for all these printers. (Sourceforge is
supported by HP.)

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

Thanks for the information, Bob. It'll be good to know for future
reference. However, further research into The Gimp and Gutenprint have
produced some revelations that I didn't know when I made the original post.

The current "officially integrated" version of The Gimp for Mandriva
Linux 2008.0 is 2.4.4.0 RC (Release Candidate). This version uses
Gutenprint 5.0.x for all of its printing. A look at the newer version
that is in the final round of testing shows The Gimp 2.4.4.1. It should
move into "official" status shortly. That version still requires
Gutenprint to be installed, but it also has a new print module that uses
the CUPS drivers, like hplip. Also, starting with version 5.1.x,
Gutenprint no longer supports a whole list of HP and other printers that
it used to. They are now supported by the new Gimp print module.

I installed The Gimp 2.4.4.1, leaving Gutenprint 5.0.2 in place. I then
tried a plain-paper comparison on my PSC 2110, because that printer is
supported directly by both modules. (I used plain paper because I didn't
want to waste the more expensive photo paper on a first test.) I saw
little, if any difference between the prints when the same resolution is
used.

So I guess the whole question was moot before I even asked it. That's
both the problem and advantage of Linux over some other OS's.
Development in certain areas is so rapid it's sometimes difficult to
keep up with it.

TJ