Cheap USB printer for Mac OS X and Linux?

M

mangoSharingan

Guest
Hi, I'm going to get an Apple iBook soon for Christmas (yay!) and I originally was planning to get the Epson C46 printer as it only costs about £40 here in the UK. I have an old Epson Stylus 460 which I have had for 4 years and it is still working fine on my other PC (Windows). However, I want one to always be ready for my main system, which will be the iBook and from the screenshots I have seen, the iBook doesn't have a parallel port. So I'm looking for a cheap replacement USB printer and not looking to spend more than £45-50. I have always been a fan of Epson due to the fact that you can buy cheap compatible cartridges for it. I only need a printer for printing out uni slides and coursework so I don't really need all that high-resolution photo stuff.

So, does anyone know if the Epson C46 will work with my iBook straight away when I plug in my USB and if not, how easy/hard is it to find and install the drivers? If 'no' to these 2 questions, then what other printers would you suggest? Thanks.
 
OP
B

Badger

Guest
I can't tell you about the C46 but I can recommend two different Canon printers - an i320 and an i350 - which were each less than $100 C$. They both work on OS 9 & X and installed with drivers (included) from Canon.
 
OP
M

mangoSharingan

Guest
Oh yea, can't believe I missed that part out of the Apple site. Cheers! I can rest assured now...
 
OP
M

m1k

Guest
Yeah, I have both an Epson C42UX inkjet printer and an HP DeskJet 1100 series, and both work fine.

The DeskJet wasn't listed in Apple's compliant printers page, but it still worked, as HP had drivers for both Mac OS X and Windows.

So just so you know, if a printer doesn't show up on Apple's page, check the company website because it might still work with Mac OS X.

Cheers,
m1k
 
OP
M

mangoSharingan

Guest
Hi guys, I got my Epson C46 printer today but I can't seem to get it installed ok on Mac OS X. I got 10.3.7 btw. When I go to 'About this Mac' and click on 'More info', then click on USB, it indicates that an Epson printer has been plugged in. Then when I go to 'Printer List' and click 'Add', my printer doesn't appear under 'EPSON USB'. It does appear under 'USB' as 'Stylus C46' but it says 'Driver not installed'. Now I have tried searching everywhere but I can't find a proper Epson Mac C46 driver. I tried 2 Gimp drivers but that didn't work. I also tried installing the C44UX driver from the Epson site and that doesn't work. Although the Epson C46 doesn't have drivers on the Epson site, any C40-series driver should really work right?

Also, I read somewhere that the Mac OS X driver for it should be in Disc 3 of the Mac OS X Install Disc but the thing is that my iBook only came with 2 Install CDs!
 

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