Hardware: Canon LaserShot LBP5000 Colour Laser Printer

I bought this printer a few months back, because of the good review Trusted Reviews gave it, and also because my Dad purchased it and seemed very happy with it. Unlike a lot of printers now which come with 1/2 or 1/4 full toner cartridges, this one comes with all cartridges completely full. Print quality is also very good for its price.

Another reason I bought it is because they had official Linux drivers available. When I first got the printer, only version 1.3 was out, and it was a bit of a pain to setup. Now version 1.6 is out, they have finally included Debian packages as well as the original rpms. Installing these on my Ubuntu living room server was a doddle, and by making sure I have the sharing options turned on in CUPS, all my Linux machines can print to it without having to install any drivers.

However, as a warning, these drivers are proprietary and require the Canon CAPT service to be run. This is a bit of a pain as you have to configure CUPS to use it properly. The main issue I have had, is that if I turn off the printer, when I turn it back on again, I have to restart the canon service