Linux compatible laser printer/scanner (not HP)

General system Newbie
1

My question is, what laser printer with scanner (other than HP) have you used that works flawlessly with eos and Linux in general? I am looking for good driver compatibility, something that doesn’t require manual installs, ideally driver implemented in kernel. Also any website links welcome.

I found for example this, seems that brother printers have some good support.

https://www.openprinting.org/printers/manufacturer/Brother

Why not HP?
I had a super duper professional HP laser printer bought in Fall 2020. HP sent a firmware update and after that the printer broke. It got stuck at 50% update. There was no hard reset, touch screen not working for manual intervention. Called HP support, zero useful support on the issue, they say it must be hardware, there was no way to reset the firmware (they don’t have such function). I went online and saw many other complaints with the exact same issue. It looks like they bricked my printer as soon as I was out of warranty. Support also told me, since I am out of warranty, they will exceptionally wave the support cost of $. I said thanks, but HP broke my working printer in the first place by sending an update…

Luckily I had a 4 year best buy replacement plan and brought that sucker back.

Long story short, I am not going to buy again HP ever. It is unfortunate, the printer was awesome quality, but I can’t trust them if they send updates that brick the printer, and there is no way to do a factory reset.

2

If you decide on a particular Brother printer, before purchasing the device, look in the AUR to see if there is a PKGBUILD for that model. Things are a lot easier if the printer driver is in the AUR.

For instance, I have a DCP-L2500DW which exists in the AUR.

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/brother-dcp-l2550dw

So an installed printer driver is a “yay -S brother-dcp-l2550dw” away.

Also, for any new Brother printers, brscan4 is also available in the AUR.

then use the

Driver:	DCP-L2550DW series - IPP Everywhere

setting in the cups server (localhost:631 in Firefox URL box).

Pudge

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3

We have Samsung scx-4216f here. Driver installation and configuration is manual, however simple and always works. I have tried many Linux distros and weirdly haven’t come across any distro that can use this printer out of the box. Even Windows can’t, Windows detects the printer but queues its driver installation as an optional update, you have to go to Windows Update and choose to install it​:rofl:
This is how you configure driver:

  1. Plug in the printer with USB.
  2. Install cups and splix packages. Splix is in repos.
  3. Start cups systemd service and go to localhost:631 on web browser.
  4. Add new printer on cups interface, choose driver for the exact model of the printer.
  5. Verify that printing works by printing test page from cups interface.

Keep in mind that I never tried scanning, just printing.

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4

All i can say, whatever you choose keep that in mind if you need to print something that :male_detective: won’t like:

Steganography use in modern printers
Protection of privacy and circumvention

DEDA - great software to trick those smart-*sses who think that printing your printer serial is nice.

honka_animated-128px-49

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5

I think i would look at brother also. I have a brother laser black although it doesn’t have scanning it works great.

6

I am thinking of getting a monochrome with scanner. Most of the printers are out of stock, and pricing are high. Difficult to find something.

7

Just wondering if the last comment on there and update was in 2019, is it still ok to use those packages? I assume they commonly download it directly from git or brother, so don’t need to repackage it everytime.

8

I the case of my DCP-L2500DW, this printer is several years old. After a period of time, printer models go into a non-development stage which includes driver development. So unless there is a severe security issue, drivers just don’t change.

If concerned, one can check the Brother printer’s homepage and see if there has been any recent updates, then flag the AUR package if it is out of date.

In the case of DCP-L2550DW, the latest version of the printer versions and brscan4 versions are

          Brother website                    |    AUR
brother-dcp-l2550dw    11/02/2017  4.0.0-1   |  4.0.0-1
brscan4                12/21/2021  0.4.11-1  |  0.4.11-1

So, development on the DCP-L2550DW printer driver ceased in 2017; and I can almost bet there will never be a newer printer driver release.

The brscan4 scanner driver has a much later release of 2021 because all models from many years back use brscan4 and development on it is probably on going as new models are introduced.

Pudge

EDIT:
In case the AUR maintainer thinks the Brother DCP-L2550DW printer is obsolete and decides to remove the driver from the AUR, I have a copy of the AUR snapshot on my NAS just in case.

Go to the url in Post #2 and notice the “Download Snapshot” button. The download will be a tar ball of all necessary files for makepkg. I save this on my NAS just in case.

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9

Thanks for clarifying, I think I will try to find a 2021 model to ensure recent support. Make sense with the scanner support to be updated.

10

I got this printer, quite cheaper than color but still laser and scanner

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/hll2395dw

Looks like AUR has a driver for this one

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/brother-hll2395dw

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11

If this will be a network printer, the first thing you need to do is set a static IP address.
Go to the little LCD screen on the printer itself. Should be a menu item “network”
then set a static IP address for the printer.
Install printer driver with yay
pacman -Q | grep cups (should see cups and pdf-cups)
systemctl status cups.service (cups should be active)
systemctl enable cups.service then systemctl start cups.service (if necessary)

Then install the printer using the CUPS server built into linux by entering
localhost:631
in your browser url entry

If you have problems from there, let me know.

If you still can, you might want to remove the Solution label until successfully installed.

Pudge

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12

Yes, will be a network printer. Thanks for the tips, I am pretty bad with cups, will be very handy to be able to ask questions here. Thanks for that!

I will post more once it arrives and I set it up! I am excited to run a non HP! Weirdly I only dealt with hplip and it mostly worked but on and off, with my previous printer that got borked by HP :face_with_raised_eyebrow:. Look forward to install this properly and switch to brother.

I am not yet sure if I should get it off the wifi connected to internet. Looks like if we connect to wifi, these companies take the liberty to send firmware without my consent. Or could be my cat hacked into my printer, truly this little guy can switch it on/off and handle touchscreen :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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