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I dismissed the "Windows only" small text on the side of the box, and bought the HP 710 Color deskjet.
It uses PPA also, and Ghostscript can't handle it. There's a working black and white driver at this address (for HP 7x0, 820 and 1000 series) and I've just found that the same people are currently working on a color driver (see sourceforge. Since HP won't release specs, they are forced to hack on the windows drivers to find the printer protocol.
It's been a while since I'm using the b/w driver, and I'm too cheap to spend color ink testing alpha drivers... But I'll give this new drivers a spin.
Anyway, I think that every manufacturer that wants to approach the open source world should first release specs for all their products (HP: does that ring a bell?)

go Mnemonic!!!

If Open Source applications such as AbiWord were packaged and sold on the shelves at cost of distribution, people would realize that software for Linux is available and of high-quality.

I don't think so... The main attraction of Linux is that you can get anything for free. What needs to be developed is an easier way of getting these things, something like an online store without money... now I have no problem with the current system, "Search Engines" (hehe), but the average person would like a place he can go online to just browse what's available and say "Ooh that looks nice, I think I'll get that..." rather than knowing beforehand what he needs.

Even though there are numerous applications for Linux available, there really aren't that many of comparable quality and usability to their Windows counterparts in areas which the average user needs. For example, there is nothing for Linux that is comparable to something like Quicken for Windows, a popular financial application. While there are small applications being developed, there aren't any commercial applications developed that serve that purpose. Some Linux users seem to fear the commercialization of software, but in a sense, it is required for the further advancement and acceptance of Linux.

Picky picky picky... Yes financial software is one area where linux is deficient, the other (more prominent) area being web browsers. We've just about solved the web browser problem, with Opera and Konquerer on the way, and especially Mozilla. M12 looks great, and it seems to be almost as powerful as netscape 4.7 (and it IS more stable :-). I've noticed that I can now successfully login to slashdot with it and the only thing I can't seem to do is moderating. I think with M13 or M14 (assuming they exist... i mean they might reach the 1.0 stage before then :-) I'll be switching over.

For the most part, I agree with everything else in the article... I've felt the wrath of printer support, especially with the HP 722c's. Back in RH6.0 I was able to get mine working... slightly... After that, I haven't been able to. I'm now on Slackware 7 and I still can't. (The driver is available, at PPA for the masses.) BUT... I am extremely impressed in the amount of drivers available for linux, in the most recent kernel there is a working driver for the SB1000 Cable Modem, a Hybrid Cable Modem card used in some areas (like mine) where fiber optic cable is not yet available. This is such an obscure device I didn't think there would be a driver, but lo and behold there was a driver and a HOWTO!!! You don't need to go looking for drivers in linux, almost everything is included with the kernel. Recompiling a kernel is not hard, either. Try it some time!

yebyen@adelphia.net

A linux driver for the hp 7xx and some 8xx series win-printers exists and works well, although it currently supports black and white printout only.

It is easy to install, and works with Ghostscript, so the printer looks like a postscript device.

I have had no problems with it, and installation is pretty straghtforward (instructions are on the above site).

I don't blame HP so much for creating the whole winprinter concept (which after all is not much different then PCL). It makes sense, as current host CPU's are SO powerfull. I don't want to pay for another CPU and more RAM for my printer... I already have that in my PC. Go ahead and make the printer dumb and cheap.

I do blame HP for not opening up the interface specifications, however. It is silly to make people reverse engineer everything to get these (otherwise quite nice) printers supported on other operating systems.

I, for one, would not have bought my 720 had I not known already that it was supported via the above linked product.

That being said, it is a great little printer for black and white output under Linux, and coupled with good plastic coated Kodak inkjet paper, can produce some stunningly high quality photographs under Windows. It's a lot of bang for the buck.

Bill Kilgallon

Check out the pbm2ppa project (via freshmeat or this site.) Color support is lacking though, and the last code update seems to have been a year ago.

Certainly there are other printers that are better suited for Linux, and HP deserves a large raspberry for refusing to reveal details of their printer protocol.

Oh well, I'm still going to leave up my mirror of the Echelon-encoding CGI for all you conspiracy theorists out there.... :)

Update:
I've increased the message size limit on my mirror of the echelon-encoding script
to 4096 bytes so it should be a little more useful.

http://www.httptech.com/echelon/

I've mirrored Ben's echelon-armor CGI script at http://www.httptech.com/echelon/

Patrick Barrett
Yebyen@adelphia.net

There is a way for HP 720C, 820C, and 1000C winprinters to work under linux.
PPA for the masses
It does not have color support but will print black text and graphics just fine.

stay away from the 7xx series of HP printers, every one that I have seen is a software printer....

The PPA For The Masses page says it has some GPLed software to drive at least some of the 7xx-series HP printers (with the help of Ghostscript).

I've not used it, so I can't say one way or the other how well it works.

You can find support under linux for those HP "for windows" printers here:
http://www.httptech.com/ppa/