Can a proprietary printer driver outperform the Gimp-Print project and the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS)? I recently raved about an Epson Color Stylus 880 and its free software offerings. This week, I will review the Lexmark Z52 Color Jetprinter and the proprietary Linux software Lexmark has created for it.

Lexmark sent me a brand-new Z52; it is a fine printer for desktop use. It can reach an amazing resolution of 2400 dpi, in both black and color. At the default setting of 600 dpi, it spits out up to 15 pages per minute. Just a couple of years ago, Lexmark's top-of-the-line printers offered only 1200 dpi. Online prices for the Z52 range from $141 to the suggested retail, $179.

Installation

After unpacking the Z52, I hooked it up using Lexmark's illustrated (no text at all) installation guide. The first step was to connect the parallel cable between the computer and the printer. The illustration showed that to do so, a hinged door on the back of the printer had to be open. The interface could be either USB or parallel; both types of cables come with the printer. Following the illustrations, I quickly connected the power supply (it is built into the Epson printer, external on the Lexmark) to the printer and a wall outlet, and turned it on.

I put the downloaded file in a Lexmark subdirectory that I created in my home directory. Then I typed tar xzf cjlx52le.tar.gz to extract and decompress the contents. That produced a text

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