[ILUG] [OT] opinions on Xerox Phaser 6100 printer?

[Conor Daly]

Just saw a Xerox Phaser 6100DN colour laser printer on sale at EUR430 on
dabs.  details at:
http://www.office.xerox.com/perl-bin/product.pl?product=6100

It's got a duplexer and network interface so it's attractive that way.

The driver is proprietary and is downloadable from:

ftp://ftp.tekcolor.com/ftp_dir/1080761492/OTHER/NA/6100Linux_i386.tar.gz

The readme says:

	SUPPORTED CONFIGURATIONS
	------------------------
	- Linux distributions supported: Redhat 6.x, Mandrake 7.x, SuSE 6.x and
	  newer versions.
	- Linux kernel 2.2 and up
	- GNU Libc version 2.1 and up

	NOTE: This program includes printer driver files for Debian 2.2,
	Caldera OpenLinux 3.x, TurboLinux, Slackware 7.x, Linux/PPC, and Yellow Dog.
	Xerox provides these additional drivers as a service to our customers.
	However the drivers for Linux OS's listed in this note are not
	supported by Xerox Customer Support.

The driver appears to be quite useful but there's always the question of
future support.  Is there a way I can determine if the printer will accept a
straight postscript feed?  Manuals are at:

http://www.office.xerox.com/userdoc/P6100/6100_Web/pdfs/english/quick_reference_guide.pdf
http://www.office.xerox.com/userdoc/P6100/6100_Web/pdfs/english/user_guide.pdf
http://www.office.xerox.com/userdoc/P6100/6100_Web/pdfs/setup.pdf
http://www.office.xerox.com/userdoc/P6100/6100_Web/pdfs/instructions.pdf

Ah, at:

 Home > Support & Drivers > Phaser 6100 > Knowledge Base > Configurations and Options

 from: http://www.office.xerox.com/

I see it says:

	PostScript and PCL Fonts  	No  	No

Does this mean I am limited to the proprietary driver for all printing
operations?  And therefore unable to use the printer once they stop
supporting the model and linux passes out the latest driver?

Conor
-- 
Conor Daly,                   Please avoid sending me 
Met Eireann, Glasnevin Hill,  Word or PowerPoint attachments.
Dublin 9, Ireland             http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
Ph +3531 8064276 Fax +3531 8064247


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