Asking a Linux user to recommend a printer

Exactly. You can join the club of “Do Nothing and Win” club along with Gabe Newell

They have started chipping their toners, or so I've read. They're still the least shitty printer manufacturer, AFAIK, though.

DON’T ENSHITTIFY!

They kind of already did, at least they did in the past.

They fought pretty hard to make you only use their toners, and they would warn you to change your toner cartridges way earlier than it was necessary to do so, disabling the printer if you didn't. I remember having to put tape over the optical device in the printer that looks at the toner cartridge, just so I can keep using my toner cartridge.

Don't get me wrong, I love my brother mfc7840w printer, but it's so weird to hear so much praise for Brother, it's like there is group amnesia about how they used to be on some of this stuff themselves.

They already started. I think it's too late

Too late

Harry Printer

You’re a printer Harry.

Give a lightning scar across the top

I hope it’s at least in standby mode, and not always on.

You may not remember the brand, but sounds to me like you got yourself a Brother laser printer.

It runs arch btw

Harry Plotter

Incredibly I've had two printers I've never really had issues with.

1. The brother laser my sister uses with Ubuntu without a hitch since forever
2. The canon inkjet printer/scanner that is wifi connected in my flatshare

CUPS picks up my TR7020 just fine. It’s still an inkjet piece of garbage, but it works fine lol

I got a Canon MF3010 laser printer a few years back. It is attached to a print server made out of an old Mac laptop I had. It has been great. I can print to it from anything, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and I have had to replace the toner once since I got it.

Okidata Microline dot matrix printer has entered the chat

My only gripe with it was the scan drivers were not easy to configure to enable network scanning.

Once I figured that out, I made a SANE scan server that has the drivers, and I just point all my devices to that (SANE to SANE) and don't even need to install the actual scanner drivers. It's damn amazing.

Come to Germany, the only country in the EU where paper usage is still going UP.

You'd think, lol. I still find myself randomly needing to print randomly (and more often than I'd like).

I'm with you, but unfortunately our world is still filled with old fucks who still see paper (and by extension, wet signatures) as some sort of ultimate authoritative source

Source: I've worked in the financial industry before (and never again)

When I read a very long RFC, I’d rather read it as an ink sprayed dead tree than a PDF.

We need to lobotomize our "smart" devices ...

its why i dont like buying by brand, but rather specific product.

buying by brand gives companies a pass when they push out a shit product.

Their sewing machines are crap, too, from what I've heard. Shouldn't assume their whole product line is worthwhile.

Legit solid printer. Would highly recommend

Yep. That's exactly what I do. I thought about a color laser, but even the Brother ones will not print if one of the colors is empty (or, at least at the time I was researching).

So I got a good mono one that covers 99% of my needs. For the few times I need to print in color, I just have that done somewhere for next to nothing. Typically those are photos, and what I get back are better than I'd have printed at home.

most inkjets clog like a motherfucker when not in use.

If you have an inkjet printer, even an expensive one, you have to leave it plugged in and in standby mode so it can do it's regular cleaning cycle.

A good middle-range inkjet printer (like a Canon MB2700) can be economical and durable; unfortunately most people's experience of inkjet are the ultra-cheap ones sold in big-box stores, sold at a loss, to sell over-priced cartridges, and not left plugged in/don't have cleaning cycles.

Yup, bought an old office mono laser printer (its from OKI) for pretty cheap, I got one that can do duplex scanning and printing with a document feeder because I dont want to scan every page individually.

Put new cheapo toner in it after a bit because it only came with a little bit and with that new cartridge it will probably last at least 10 years with my print frequency.

If I would have bought a new ink printer with those features I would have paid much more (investment and running costs) and I would probably need to unclog it every time I want to print something.

RIP to your brother as well, I have a forever 36 brother due to meth.

Glad we can bond over these printers though!

My father had a Brother laser printer.

So it was an Uncle laser printer?

(I’m sorry I’ll see myself out)

I always suspect printing/scanning is easier on linux because by default linux don't have a firewall by default (also driver is always included).

I was trying to setup a firewall on linux, the printing and scanning is as painful as windows if not worse. So now I just turn off the entire firewall if I want to print/scan. Fortunately, I rarely print or scan.

Oh gods yes. Government surplus equipment is amazing when you can find it.

My state used to send all their decommissioned IT equipment to a warehouse where the public could buy it. It was a wonderland. My first few laptops all came from there (was poor and that was the only way I could afford one).

About 5 years ago, though, they stopped that and only send old furniture there. Anything electronic now goes to some 3rd party e-waste service where it probably ends up in a landfill in some poor country.

Heyyy, mine just turned 16. Cheers.

Preach it. Same boat same result.

Brother on Windows can be problematic

They are starting to now.

This is the first I am hearing of this brand.

How does it fare when compared to, say, Brother?

But then you have to go outside and shudders interact with people. Hard pass.

The last printer I got cost 40€. Print shops charge 10ct per copy. That’s 400 prints just to amortize the cheapest garbage printer you could buy 10 years ago. And the ink doesn’t last 400 prints. Owning a printer just doesn’t make sense.

Went to the FedEx print shop a few months back. They directed me to a self help that wanted me to overpay or it wouldn't print anything (blocks of payments, like 5/10/15 but the thing I wanted was like 7.89). I asked if they could do it for me instead so I could just pay for the thing I want and they said yes but would charge I think it was 2 bucks for assistance, still cheaper than the other overcharge but wtf. Just going to a locally owned place from now on after that ridiculousness.

Or a library

I did that for years until I found myself in a job that frequently involves signing and scanning purchase orders. As I've spent six figures of company money on network hardware and other tech stuff over the past year you'd think we'd have an electronic solution for this and while most of it is done via SAP, our suppliers still often need an actual signature.

This is the way. I have a Brother B&W laser printer/scanner combo because I fairly regularly need to print/sign/scan/email forms for various things, but if I need something colour or really.good quality the local print shop is the way to go

That's weird. I didn't have that issue with mine (though I've seen Canon and HP printers require something like that -- or a smartphone app).

Mine is an old 2013 model with ethernet and wifi. You could find it's DHCP address from the panel and configure everything through its web UI. It even lets you enter the wifi SSID/password on a very tiny, awkward onscreen keyboard lol

Some of us buy printers because we have abuse and humiliation fetishes. My OfficeJet is the kinkiest product I own.

That said, we really need to keep printing paper hard copies of important stuff. Like, why do archival projects not charge non-personal (business & government) users a subscription fee for access and provide free personal use to library card holders?

Ha, nice. My one and only jam was because I completely failed at life trying to load an envelope.

I just dragged out my wife's old college hp inkjet printer, and I was delighted to discover that it doesn't even have a networking function on it. No wifi and no ethernet. It's not even 10 years old.

Of course, to use it I have to be within usb-cord range, but small sacrifice for a printer that won't hold itself hostage over outdated credit card information.

You can also disable that in the menu. I bought a brother printer and it said that the toner was empty so I purchased a new toner cartridge but then I disabled the warning and I'm still on the original toner. And I printed so much stuff with it, it's like it never runs out 😂

Cannon will charge you an arm and a leg for ink. There are third parties but its a mixed bag with the DRM

Same. I bought a 4-pack of toner refills with it. I'm on the 2nd one.

old

laser

That's the key

Brother just has the most recent ones, but if you can find an old laser the brand almost doesn't matter.

Same. Mine's 11+ years old, flawless. Even if it finally shits the bed, I can probably get a refurb kit for a few bucks.

It stops working until you walk over to it and reset the toner state to full, then it works fine.

At least, that's how mine manufactured 2 years ago works.

It's bliss, isn't it?

I rarely need to print, but when I do, it's always something important - typically something I have to physically print, sign, and send back. I just click "print" and never worry about it. Haven't been let down in the 11 years I've had this one (except that one time it was out of paper lol).

"oh, I might look into those"

finishes reading your comment

"fuck you for playing with my heart like that, I've been hurt before"

I remember trying to print HUGE gamefaqs guides on my dot matrix printer back in the day. Thing literally ran for over 24 hours to print some of the larger ones.