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.
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.
Still Brother. Yes they have a subscription option, but only on certain models. Just read the product page to verify.
Usually, retailers carry both, so if you find two almost identical ones, only slight price and model number differences, then you should easily be able to pick the non-subscription one.
Brother HL-2270DW, $60 on craigslist, still lots of them out there.
+1 for used Brother models. Mine is a MFC 27XX YY, which has decent Linux support and accepts third-party toner without complaints.
I have a very similar Brother - HL-L2370DW. Just works with any Linux distro I’ve tried out of the box. Has wifi, USB, and ethernet, black and white laser, duplex printing. No copier functionality. Third party toner cartridges are readily available.
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Yup, another vote for brother laser printers. If you’re worried about them applying updates that add DRM to toner cartridges, but you still want network printing you can do one of two things:
- Give the printer a static IPv4 address and block egress from your router with a firewall.
- Give it a static IPv4 address but give it a non-functional gateway (e.g. if your gateway is 10.0.0.1, make the printer’s gateway 10.0.0.254)
Heck, do both if you’re paranoid.
Either way it’s not getting updates unless you manually change things or download the firmware updates on your Linux box and apply it that way.
I bought a WiFi Brother printer 3 years ago and had a terrible time with Fedora Linux after Google discontinued Google Print services. I eventually gave up and would ask my partner to print from her Windows machine.
We now have a WiFi Canon laser printer and I’m printing from phone, Fedora, and USB memory stick with no issues. Never even installed drivers for anything.
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?
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.
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Except that in civil discussion with experts, other ideas are what helps people arrive at a solution suitable for them and their situation.
I’ll also add that I’ve been a Linux user for 25 years and the toxicity you claim in relation to the Linux community is in my experience not evident as a “major reason”, instead I’ve found it to be innovative and flexible with a wide perspective and approach to problem solving.
Are there dickheads in the Linux community? Yes, just like there are everywhere in society.
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. :(
I don’t have a specific model, but in general I’ve had success with Epson Tank printers and Linux. It opens up the ability to use third party ink easily. I’ll use the Epson Connect feature for scanning (to email in my instance, but there’s other options) without needing to input a server address or install anything on the OS. The main caveat, like most ink printers, they work best if you print often. This is to cut down on dry out and manual print head cleaning. In my experience using them weekly is enough.
Why would you use third party inks in an ecotank? Genuine epson inks in bottles for the ecotank are super cheap. I follow the opposite route. Refillable epson compatible cartridges with ecotank inks. Epson quality with third party costs.
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’
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.
HP Laserjets are usually decent. Ironically, I’ve had a better time with consumer lasers since the enterprise variants take ages to boot.
I got the Epson L8180 (the same model has another name in the US), since I’m an artist and want larger prints. It even prints from the rear, since I do my sketches on an ipad, and then I print my sketches on thick, 300 gsm watercolor paper. It does scanning and printing and copying, and all works on Linux. Gimp supports its advanced printing dialog with the appimage, but not flatpak version (the problem is with the flatpak architecture, not gimp or the driver). Conversely, the xsane app supports the scanner fine, but xsane is itself not very stable. I use the epsonscan2 flatpak version (which works better than the .deb file under ubuntu-based distros). Overall, very happy with printing with gimp3 with more advanced options.
My solution is perhaps more convoluted than most. But I got tired of trying to cherry pick the best printer from the limited selection and built a Windows 11 VM in Virt-Manager and passed through the USB port my printer is plugged into. Now I can buy whatever printer I want/need without worry of compatibility.
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.
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.
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.
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.
