printer ink status monitor?

[in2media]

when my laptop had xp on and my epson r265 was installed i had a status monitor which checked the levels on the ink and told me which ink was running low or totally out. how can i check the levels of ink on my printer in mint
any ideas welcome

[lagagnon]

At this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=351851 there are two suggestions: mtink and escputil, both are run from the command line. You could try them, but be aware that many of these report low ink way before it actually happens. I usually wait for the obvious (my pages start to get lighter) and never use software ink level stuff as I find them unreliable.

[optimize me]

At this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=351851 there are two suggestions: mtink and escputil, both are run from the command line. You could try them, but be aware that many of these report low ink way before it actually happens. I usually wait for the obvious (my pages start to get lighter) and never use software ink level stuff as I find them unreliable.

+1

Even with the proprietary software that came with printers I've bought and installed in Windows, I found them to be completely wrong and unreliable at best. It seems to me that they always timed themselves with how long it's been since you put in and calibrated a new cartridge vs. how many pages you've printed since then.

If I were you, I wouldn't expect to find some pretty little application that you open up and it shows you a picture of your ink cartridge 3/4 or 1/3 full of ink or something. At best, you'll find a terminal-based app like lagagnon suggests.

[TwilightGhost]

Absolutely poor documentation with escputil, but I finally got it to work with Linux Mint 12.
I had a Epson Stylus CX3810 on USB. Install escputil from Software Manager. Open Terminal:

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$ lsusb

• Bus 001 Device 005: ID 04b8:0818 Seiko Epson Corp. Stylus CX3700/CX3800/DX3800

My printer was mapped as /dev/bus/usb/001/005...what the hey? Yours may differ.

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$ su

Provide user password for root access.

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# lsmod

Check for output list for usblp module. If not present, add it. If present, skip two steps to the escputil command.

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# modprobe usblp
# lsmod

• Module Size Used by
  usblp 17833 0

Check again for usblp module. Should be at the top of the list.

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# escputil -i -r /dev/usb/lp0

• Escputil version 5.2.7, Copyright (C) 2000-2006 Robert Krawitz
  Escputil comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type 'escputil -l'
  This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
  under certain conditions; type 'escputil -l' for details.
  
  Ink color Percent remaining
  Cyan 81
  Yellow 92
  Magenta 80
  Photo Black 67

YAY!