# Advice: should I buy an HP LaserJet 1020 or 1022 for gentoo?

## opensas

I'm about to buy a new printer, and I'm fed up whit all that lousy inkjet models (the ink cartridges cost a fortune)

I was thinking about an HP Laserjet 1020 or an HP Laserjet 1022

I search at http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi and found that

http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=HP-LaserJet_1020

 *Quote:*   

> HP LaserJet 1020
> 
> BW laser printer, max. 600x600 dpi, works Mostly
> 
> Edited Notes
> ...

 

The firmware of the printer must be uploaded after turning it on. The modified "foo2zjs" driver package contains a script to do the upload automatically.

and in http://www.linuxprinting.org/suggested.html says

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
>  The cheap LaserJet 1000/1005/1020 principally work with free software, too, but they need their firmware uploaded from the computer everytime when they are turned on. This makes their setup much more complicated.
> 
> 

 

and for the 1022 http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=HP-LaserJet_1022

 *Quote:*   

> HP LaserJet 1022
> 
> BW laser printer, max. 600x600 dpi, works Perfectly 	
> 
> Recommended driver: hpijs (Home page, view PPD, download PPD)
> ...

 

Had some bad experiences fighing against some hardware drivers in linux. One PCI modem that definetely has no linux support, and the usb adsl modem my web provider gave me, which made me swept a lot.

So I like to now your opinions before deciding a buy

Thanks a lot

Saludos

Sas

<edit>

Just went thru the linuxprinting forums... the hplj1020 aroused lots of headaches ... too bad

</edit>

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## NeddySeagoon

opensas,

I have an HP 2550Ln. Its fully supported. There are a few gotchas. If you get a Laser Priinter with only tray 1, it has a very large footprint because the tray does not fit under the printer. That was a problem to me. I had to get tray 2 as an expensive add on.

My printer works with both USB2 and with a network connection. Knowing what I know now, I reccomend the 2550n, theres no USB (network only) but its supplied with tray 2.

I don't know were to go for a good dollar price - I'm in the UK.

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## opensas

Thanks for your reply

But the 2550n is a little out of my budget. On HP it costs U$S 399

And I was thinking about spending no more than 200

The 1020 is about $$$ 199, whereas the 1022 is at 199 (here in Buenos Aires, I get the former one at U$S 165, and the latter at U$S 188)

Saludos

Sas

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## yottabit

I have sold many 1022 printers to clients and they're quite reliable for a low-volume use. AFAIK all HPs should work with a PCL5 or PCL6 driver (PCL is HP's standard LASER printer language). But if the printer supports PCL6 and you use PCL5, while it will work in a backward-compatible mode, you might be lacking some new features.

Some of the higher-end HPs support the Postscript language which of course is easiest, especially for UNIX and when you want a print job to look identical across multiple printers and brands.

I always tell my clients:

You want monochrome LASER? Go with HP.

You want inkjet? Go with Epson.

You want color LASER or wax? Go with Tektronix (recently acquired by Xerox).

You want dot-matrix? Go with Panasonic.

Just my advice after dealing with printers for nearly 20 years.

J

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## opensas

Thanks yottabit

What about the 1020 on linux???

Saludos

Sas

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## yottabit

Howdy!

I have never sold a 1020... I am a little weary considering the post mentioning the problem with getting the 1020 to work properly in CUPS. Without doing any investigating of my own, it sounds like it may be doing what the old entry-level Panasonic and Samsung LASER printers did. That is, implementing the print-processing in the software driver on the operating system instead of offloading the processing to the ASICs in the printer hardware.

If this is indeed the case, you will be very unlikely to get the printer to work properly with CUPS or any non-Windows OS unless HP specifically makes drivers for Linux, *BSD/OSX, etc.

Let me have a little look around HP's site and see if I can discern anything like that about the 1020...

Aha! Bad news, my friend. I haven't had any client attach the 1022 to UNIX which is why I didn't realize this yet...

I had to REALLY DIG to find this info on HP's site. They obviously are saying the printers (1020/1022) are only compatible with Windows, but they don't say why... Quote from their site under the title "HP LaserJet 1020 and 1022 Series Printers - DOS Operating System not Supported":

 *Quote:*   

> The printer is "host-based". This means the printer uses the processing power of the computer and Windows software to format the print job for the printer. Without the Windows environment, the job will not be formatted for printing.

 

I found another clue in the driver description: "HP LaserJet 1020 series host based driver".

So you see, the driver is doing the processing, not the printer hardware. This is why the printer seems to be a decent price for its features; the printer is lacking the normal sophistication of hardware.

So the only way to use these printers in a non-Windows environment would be if someone hacked together a driver... not likely.  :Sad: 

Sorry!

J

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## opensas

That's too bad...

What would you recommend to a guy who is fed up with ink jet printers and wants to buy a laserjet personal printer to use with gentoo???

in linuxprinting says that the hp1020 is pretty hard to configure, but the 1022 model should work fine...

Saludos

Sas

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## yottabit

Well you're welcome to try the 1022 if you can afford to take that risk...

Otherwise I still recommend HP printers for LASER but you should take a look at some slightly higher models that don't mention that "host based" driver crap.

J

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## LordArthas

Hi!

 *yottabit wrote:*   

> Well you're welcome to try the 1022 if you can afford to take that risk...

 

HP 1020, HP 1022 and probabily all other HP printers work very well with cups (I have the latter and it prints like a charm). You just need to install the hplip package. Following the steps you find here:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2803042.html#2803042

will prove very useful in certain situations (like mine, where cups didn't want to see the foomatic printer drivers.

Hope this helps, Michele.

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## opensas

Thanks a lot, Mifiele

I was desperately looking for some happy gentoo printing with a laserjet HP printer.

I think I'll give a try to the hp 1022 (I've heard the 1020 model is quite problematic)

Saludos

Sas

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## LordArthas

Hello!

I don't know about 1020 since I wanted the better RAM, resolution and PPM of 1022 (which costs about Eur 200.00 here in Italy, not so cheap eh?  :Wink: ), but I see hplip has also the 1020 driver.

Anyhow you won't be dissatisfied of 1022 under Gentoo Linux!!!

Michele.

Edit: I still can't print from Windows machines via Samba (I get an invalid document format error), however I doubt this is a driver problem since printing from Linux works fine.

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## Decibels

I just received my new HP LaserJet 1022.  

The HP Device Manager (which you don't really need) wouldn't work. Not sure why, it was either cause

I added it with the KDE Printing Manager or cause /etc/init.d/hplip wasn't started. But deleted it and used

CUPS web interface to add it and now HP Device Manager works. But it really isn't useful.

The only thing I don't like about it is that the dpi is only up to 600 and this is a 1200dpi printer. Not that

I want it to go the high of quality but it isn't a choice if I want to use it.

If someone knows how to do it let me know. 

Just got the printer so can't say how I like it too much.

Works really fast compared to my DeskJet 722C. So that is really nice.

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## jleejj

Just a note for those who find this thread, I also just bought an HP LaserJet 1020.  It seems to be solidly built for the price ($130 after rebate) and I had it working in about an hour.  I followed the manual on CD for putting it together, and then followed the instructions at http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/ to set up the printer using cups.  You need to install cups, foomatic, and vim ahead of time (the last one only for the "ex" tool).  Then just install the foo2zjs package directly from his website and add the printer to cups.  I did all of that before plugging in the USB.

I haven't tested it with long print jobs yet (which are reported to sometime cause problems as of a few months ago), but considering how suspicious Linux support for the product sounds (no firmware on power-up and a printer line protocol no one has heard of) it went off without a hitch.  Print quality is excellent by my standards.

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## jleejj

A little update:

I ran into trouble with this printer about a week later after an emerge updated something I didn't expect, and it took 3 months for me to find the solution.  I still think it's a well built printer, but if I had it do over again I would have spent a little more money for something that understands Postscript.

If you are still interested in this printer, my solution is found here:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3868823.html#3868823

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## dspgen

Just setup an hp1022n.

use dhcp to set initial ip, then use the printers web interface to set manual ip (or set dhcp server with correct mac).

make.conf

USE=" \

cups ppds foomaticdb \

...

FOO2ZJS_DEVICES="hp1020"

"

package.use

net-print/cups  X dbus jpeg nls pam png ppds samba ssl  slp tiff

emerge -avt foo2zjs cups

/etc/init.d/cupsd start

rc-update add cupsd default

then add the printer (not using ppd file) using browser:

http://localhost:631

works great so far (just test pages and some web pages).

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## lsm

Great right out of the box!  Thank you.

 *dspgen wrote:*   

> Just setup an hp1022n.
> 
> use dhcp to set initial ip, then use the printers web interface to set manual ip (or set dhcp server with correct mac).
> 
> make.conf
> ...

 

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## alaa

Hey there guys,

I followed those steps and my HP Laserjet 1020 is working fine from my linux server to which the printer is directly connected (USB). My Windows XP laptops are a different story though.

They're all wirelessly connected to a Linksys router (the linux server is connected to the same router over a wire). Samba is running on the linux server as well.

All the Windows XP laptops can see the printer but when I try printing something it goes through all the motions but nothing gets printed. Cups doesn't show a job, windows doesn't throw any errors and samba's log shows this error :

 Unable to print file to HP_LaserJet_1020_USB_1 - client-error-document-format-not-supported

Any idea what causes that weirdness?

Thanks,

-A

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## alaa

I solved it   :Smile: 

In /etc/cups I had to edit the file mime.convs, and had to remove the # before the line application/octet-stream.

Restarted cups and it worked!

Thanks,

-A

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## bigdave1

How would this setup be different if the 1020 is connected to a Windows box with the printer shared? That is the case I'm in and I'm still having trouble getting the printer installed in Cups.

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## bigdave1

Fyi, I got the 1020 working perfectly even over a samba share since the printer is connected to a windows box. I followed the instructions at http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/INSTALL and everything was a piece of cake.

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