Some of you may have read about the issues that I had with the "archive and save settings" on Apple's latest OS X release, Tiger. I had to download the Epson driver and install it multiple times before it actually worked. Each of the failed times, I got this message.
I did get it working fine and my Epson 4000 also is now working fine under Tiger. I thought the extra effort for a relatively common USB printer like the Epson 2200 was enough by itself to question how sophisticated Apple's Tiger realy is. A sophisticated operating system should let me hook up an Epson USB printer. I don't really care whose code it is, I just want it to work simply. It didn't with Tiger and it had worked fine with Panther.
So I did move my Epson 2200 over and hooked it up to Windows XP Professional, Xandros Linux, and SUSE 9.3. Actually I had no weird problems adding it any of the three operating systems, and I kept the same Matte Black ink configuration that caused some combination of OS X's printer utility and the Epson driver to malfunction and require a number of tries before things worked on my dual G5 with Tiger.
The Windows XP intallation was straight forward and worked the first time after I installed the Epson 2200 driver. I also did a test image print and my Google map test print. Aside from a very minor cropping difference, the print test on Windows was indistinguishable from what I got in iPhoto. That is probably to be expected since both were done with an Epson supplied driver. The Google map actually printed out a little more readable in Windows with darker colors. It is as some have pointed out a beta, but it works well for a beta.
The installations under SUSE and Xandros were actually easier than Windows or OS X since the Linux systems had a driver built-in. Unfortunately the built-in driver only sort of worked.
That meant the printing results in Linux weren't that great. I could print the image from their photo package and GIMP but the results were completely unsatisfactory. SUSE did fine with the Google map, but Xandros would probably still be spitting out blank sheets of paper from the 2200 if I hadn't turned it off. I tried three times to get Xandros to print the Google Map without any results.
Of course Windows XP, SUSE, and Xandros all did fine printing the map on my networked laser printer as did Apple's Tiger.
At this point I don't think I will be migrating my graphics work to Linux. Perhaps it was the lack of experience but more likely it was the lack of an Epson driver. Drivers are the biggest challenge for the Linux folks and it appears there is still some work to do.
There were no problems importing camera images from my Nikon cameras on any of the operating systems.
I just installed tiger on my mac and want to get my 2200 firewire printer working. Any suggestions. I cannot find it when I add a printer
hal
Posted by: hal smyer | May 18, 2005 at 01:21 AM
The only suggestion that I have is downloading the Epson driver and installing it until you eventually see it. I had to do it three or four times. It doesn't make any sense. My 2200 is hooked up via USB and when I first tried to install it, I saw the GIMP drivers but they disappeared in the ether. The good news is that my 2200 down that it is installed seems to be working great. Good luck, and sorry it took me a while to reply. I'm on the road and have limited access to a network.
Posted by: ocracokewaves | May 18, 2005 at 11:32 PM
I am having the same problem with an Epson 4000. Even installing the driver a number of time has not cured the problem. I did notice that the application parts of the driver were not made executable at the Unix level. I am goingto try and raise it with Epsn in the UK.
Posted by: Roger Bulcock | May 29, 2005 at 12:24 PM
I diden't need any drivers from epson. Here's what I did:
1. Connect the printer via USB/Firewire
2. From the "Printer Setup Utility" select "Add"
3. In the printer browser window select the "More Printers..." button.
4. In the drop down menu at the top of the window, select "EPSON USB or EPSOON FIREWIRE" which ever you used.
5. Your printer should show up in the browser window, click it once, then using the "Page Setup" drop down button select "Sheet
Feeder - Borderless".
6. Select Add.
Let me know if this works for anyone.
Cheers
John Scherer
Posted by: John Scherer | June 02, 2006 at 08:29 PM