Re: Printer brand recommendations
On Mon, Sep 09, 2013 at 11:56:23PM -0700, Ross Boylan wrote:
> Short version: Brother doesn't support linux. I'm considering Lexmark.
>
> I too am looking for a B+W laser printer. I just got a Brother HL 5450 to
> replace a 5150 I had. It fails to print some pages, and I'm sending it
> back because Brother says they do not provide phone support for Linux.
> They used to have an email address for linux, but a query there produced no
> answer. It's supposed to be postscript compatible; since there are issues
> I wonder if that's in software rather than hardware.
I've had good results with Brother BW laser printers, and
many linux distributions use the same CUPS software that
Apple uses under OSX to manage printing (and released
under a sufficiently free license for Debian).
It's generally true that you don't get much vendor support
for Linux, hence the need to learn a little about the
subject and to haunt (or at least google) the relevant
mailing lists.
Greeetings,
Joel
> I'm considering Lexmark now; I used to have one of their printers and the
> quality of their support impressed me. I switched because I was hoping to
> need less support! They seem to support linux, as well as many other OS's.
>
> I got an HP inkjet that I never was able to get to work, despite talking to
> tech support. It was a network printer than seemed to bring its network
> interface down when it slipped and it wouldn't come back up without a power
> cycle. Perhaps I'm overgeneralizing, but it soured me on HP.
>
> Maybe I'll try a color laser, though Consumer Reports says they don't have
> good print quality for photos.
--
Joel Roth
Reply to: