Time for 2025 printer research!
Have been stalling getting a new printer since this HP has been doing me fine since way back. But of course we need to prepare for the inevitable firmware updates and subscription raises that will lock us in.
What I’ve heard is best:
- Laser Printers
- Brother branded
Recently though, Brother started doing the funky like all other printer companies. This stopped me last time when I was about to buy one.
I won’t get into the details as to where I’ve found and read this information because it’s in the back of my mind.
And since I’m really just here to ask: WHAT KIND OF PRINTER YOU GOT, LINUX USERS?
Preferably under $200.
EDIT: Scanning + Printer + Copier combo is the ultimate goal, but whatever else works too. Preferably wifi connected. But I can make some Ethernet cables.
Brother, brother.
I have a Brother l8900cdw and it is a beast. Does everything well, third party toner is cheap, and I love that I can use it with Paperless to save my scans straight from the homescreen. Doesn’t make pretty pictures, but it was a panic buy during peak covid and printer shortage, and it has served well since (don’t need pictures anyhow, just text and simple graphics). Only drawback is Wake on Lan doesn’t work well, fixed by just scheduling a reboot at 10am every day.
Other drawback is my wife asking me to move it up or down 15 stairs. It sucks to pick that bastard up.
BTW the Brother scare about them adding DRM that was in the news a while back turned out to be false, it was just a random guy on Reddit with a bad third-party cartridge, and Brother replied that they do not block third-party cartridges.
That said, I’m not a huge fan of their weird PPD installer on Linux that installs some random, undocumented crap
I have a cheap brother USB printer, the HL-L2300D. I got it for $80 refurbished. I get wifi printing with my phone through cups on my attached computer. You do need to install the ppd files from brother for optimal performance iirc.
I’ve run my business for over 25 years, and I haven’t had a printer in over two decades. I have needed to print something less than half a dozen times since making the decision to not replace it. Instead I print to PDF and if I need actual physical paper, I’ve put a PDF on a USB flash drive and taken it to my local office supplies store to print on demand.
I have a scanner, it’s been used perhaps a dozen times in the same period.
In other words, have you considered not buying a printer?
Another potential route: your public library. Mine prints for 5¢ per page and has a web interface for uploading documents from anywhere and printing them when you go in.
good for you, mine charges 20¢ a page
Good God… I don’t even think there’s a place in my entire town that charges that much. :(
Along this vein, a used e-reader with a large screen has cut down my printing needs by about half. Don’t have to burn out my retinas on a backlit screen, but don’t need to print out and carry stacks of paper either.
Any printer that supports Mopria or AirPrint will work on Linux without installing any drivers.
I prefer using older Brother laser printers that don’t have any chips in the toner cartridges. I have an HL-4150CDN and a DCP-7065DN.
I thought Brother would be better than HP. It wasn’t. I’ve had a lot of success for years with a Canon laser printer/scanner hooked up wired to my router. When I switched to Linux, it was simply detected and works with a lot of programs without even trying to install a Canon driver.
Yeah, I think laser with viable third party cartridges is the actual answer. No matter what brand. Individual model is more important than the brand too, because my Brother was actually still kinda annoying to get working properly.
As other’s have said Brother. I can honestly say they are one of the few companies which still make Linux drivers for their printers. I’ve been using their monochrome lasers.
They are workhorses as well, I’ve seen several out in the field printing well over 100K pages and still going strong. The best part about Brother I think is they also allow free access to their service manuals which will tell you more than you may ever want to know about your Brother Printer. :) I had an older HL-L2240 (USB Only) I bought about 9 years ago in a thrift shop and it ran faithfully on a network print server at my home until it stopped feeding paper. It probably needed a new pick up roller set, but it was a bit slow and I felt it was time to upgrade, so I now have a Hl_L2420_DW wireless which out of the box on my Fedora linux system installed and runs flawlessly. They are generally under $200 (around $130 at Wal-Mart for example).
They also do not limit you on your laser cartridge if you go that route, in that you can usually buy after market toner and drums without it ever complaining or locking you out.
Anything but inkjets, unless you are keen on printing photos. The amount of time I’ve saved on maintenance since I switched to a laser printer is astounding. Currently using an old Brother MFP I bought for $30 at the local thrift store, then $30 for a two-pack of third-party toner on eBay.
As for wireless printing, I set up an old thin client as a discrete print server.
+1 for thrifted laser. Just look for replacement toner before checking out.
I’ve had Brother laser printers for over 15 years with my Linux machines and they’ve worked beautifully.
I’ve got 2 Brother printers that work just fine with Linux Mint, the Brother L2640 and L2685. They’re both black and white toner cartridge printers that use either wireless or a USB cable connection. I print maybe a dozen pages a day on both printers and replace the cartridges ever 4-5 months or so. I can get third party replacement toner cartridges on Amazon for around $25 for a 2-pack. Replacement drums are about $25-30 every 3 years or so.
Brother HL 2030, and the scanner is a Mustek 1248UB, both chosen for their Linux compatibility at the time. And most likely both discontinued.
Mustek 1248UB
I remember buying one of those from ‘Electronics Boutique’ over 20 years ago. Before they nuked all the extra PC peripherals and renamed it ‘EB Games’
If you don’t mind used, I had great luck with my Samsung L2020w, cat got some celophane stuck in it and it died (for good)
Replaced it with a Brother HL-series because they’re what I used at work.
The lil guys are beasts.
I’d normally not wanna go with the “big corpo option” but for a printer without HP shenanigans its really great.
If you set up with the apps it will try to get you to subscribe to an ink subscription, this is not required.
Bought a HP Laser 107 nearly 5 years ago and I changed the toner few months ago. It’s just black & white but works on my LAN with any device, no driver issue. I paid :
- 110€ for the printer itself,
- 50€ for the toner,
- 15€ for 500 pages which I’m finishing about now.
The setup was painless and it just hangs on the my LAN at home until I need to print something, which is quite rare.
I also have a Brother for labels which I nearly never use but also just worked right away. Maybe had to spend 5min to get the right PPD file and setup gLabels with the right format of labels (namely rolls for in my case).
So… yes as long as you buy something that doesn’t require specific software, account, subscriptions, etc but relies on works according to standards it will work properly and will keep on doing so.
I got the Epson ET-2815 (non-cartridge, tank-based inkjet). Works pretty well with Linux (they have drivers available, but not officially supported). Had to set it up on WiFi via app (which was an annoying process) first though, but I could have just wired it up and then I wouldn’t need that. Maybe it is possible to somehow set it up on WiFi some other way after you have connected directly?
Got tripped up once because I could not connect to it via the utility software (while printing still worked). Turned iut that was due to me being connected to VPN, and for some reason the request went through that (which I think is a little suspect…), so it couldn’t find it. So I have to disconnect VPN to do that. You will not have access to this heavy self-cleaning program on Linux, but you should probably avoid it anyway because it wastes a lot of ink and deposits in this sponge you then would need to buy and replace every now and then.
Biggest issue I had was that it stopped printing some.colors after a while. Had to do a manual cleaning by opening it, removing these dummy cartridges and connecting rubber tubings to the nozzles and pump isopropyl alcohol through. Was a lot of research and took some time to get working again. Think maybe my humidifier was the issue, as it tends to deposit some white powder around my home that I think caused a clog. We’ll see this winter as I fire it up again.
EDIT: Printed a fair amount and the tanks lasts a long time. If you go inkjet, then this is the economical choice. More expensive upfront, but much cheaper in operations. But you still have the drying issue wich could cause you to have to do what I described above. Or print regularly at least. If you don’t need color, laser is probably your best bet.
Honestly, I’ve had HP for most of my life, and they have always worked until I couldn’t find cartridges for them or broke them while moving, or something similar. Latest time I needed one I decided that I print stuff so sporadically that a laser printer would be a better investment (previously, almost every time I tried to print stuff the ink was dried, because I hadn’t used it in months). I’ve had this HP for about a year and haven’t had any issues at all. But like I said I don’t print that much, but whenever I needed it it’s been there. And to me reliability is the best quality on a piece of equipment that doesn’t get much use but when it does sometimes is critical.
