Brother supports Linux on all their printers. I have a all-in-one with fax and works great. Epson stopped supporting Linux 3 years ago.
On Tue, Dec 27, 2022, at 12:06, Rusty Carruth via PLUG-discuss wrote: > Report on printer compatibility with Linux as experienced today. > > I won't bore everyone with all the details (but I will mention this > whole exercise took many hours of research, plus 2 trips to 3 different > stores, and the purchase and return of a printer that didn't do fax as I > wanted), but, I was in the market for a printer to replace my HP color > laser all-in-one. > > > Why would I replace a really nice HP Color LaserJet? Well, it > apparently decided that it wouldn't print well any more with non-HP > carts, and buying a full set of the silly things was in the neighborhood > of $300 or more, IIRC. (Oh, and the HP instant ink program, which > looked like a pretty good deal, is ONLY for inkjet printers!) > > > So, I figured I could spend $300 for genuine HP and HOPE it made the > printer happy, or punt and get a new printer. I went the latter route. > > > After 'much'-ish research, I decided I'd go for a Brother Color Laser > All-In-One (we require Fax, don't ask why ;-), since Brothers are > reputed to be excellently-supported on Linux. > > > Found the best price anywhere (the local Staples, believe it or not!) > and was about to plunk down my card to get it when I realized it was > going to be around $750 or so for the printer ($400-ish?) and genuine > Brother carts ($350-ish - sound similar to the HP prices? yeah.). > > > Woah! Ouch! Hey, I'm retired now, that's kinda a shock. Back up, > regroup, decide to try out the EcoTank idea, something I'd seriously > considered in the past. Picked an Epson (ET-4800, for like $269 at - > believe it or not - WalMart (I'm skipping the first purchase which I had > to return - no fax)), brought it home. > > > Interesting setup method. I downloaded the Epson printer setup app on > to my Android. All went very well until I tried to enter my WIFI > password. (First off, it doesn't look like the ET-4800 does 5GHz Wifi, > only 2.4, so I had to switch my phone over to the 2.4 side. This might > be an 'issue' with more than my 4800, so beware). I tried it 4 or 5 > times, never got it to work (and the app was very weird - in order to > re-enter your WiFI password you had to tell it you had done it, then it > would give you the 'enter password' dialog. Otherwise it was in an > infinite loop saying it couldn't see the printer yet, did you enter the > password correctly, did you do it right). > > Anyway, after the ink was 'charged', I went to the front panel and > connected to wifi (just fine, thank you very much, on the first try), > then suddenly the app saw it and all was well. > > My son has Apple stuff and was pretty much immediately able to print. > > I went to Epson and looked up Linux print support, downloaded the > appropriate (in my case) .deb file, installed it and the > epsonscan2-bundle, fired up my 'Printers' tool, and there it was. I > didn't even have to search/destroy um, I mean search/install. > > Select it, say print test page, immediate print success. > > > On my wife's Linux machine I tried running their 'epsonscan2' program > and was not impressed. It didn't find the scanner. So, I ran over to > XSane and simple-scan and both could see it with no problem. I used > XSane to scan in both BW and color, no problems. Oh, and it knew to let > me choose the ADF or the flatbed! > > At first I thought it didn't have extreme scan resolution, then I > fiddled in simple-scan and set it to 1200 - whoa! But very slow. > > (In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm having a weird problem getting > scanning to work on my computer, but it works perfectly on my wife's...) > > When I did all the above stuff with my HP (long ago in a galaxy far > away), it worked, but I seem to recall that getting the scanning to work > was a little more of an issue. > > > On the other hand, I have a much older Epson (from an even longer time > ago and an even further away galaxy!) that I did have issues with > finding and setting up, so it looks to me like Epson has improved a lot. > > > Haven't printed much yet, but so far so good. > > > All the above to say that Epson's Linux support worked quite well for > me this time. Linux is Linux Mint 20.2. > > Anybody want to buy an unhappy HP Color LaserJet MFP M281cdw? ;-) > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list: [email protected] > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss -- Harold Hartley 17632 N. 5th place Phoenix, AZ 85022 [email protected] --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
