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superterran ,
@superterran@discuss.online avatar

Can confirm, bought a Brother MFP like five years ago with ink refills and I still have one left. Best $90 I ever spent

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

Ooh, nice. Mine was $100 (on sale) eleven years ago. Still, $100 + two reams of paper have covered my printing needs for over a decade. Can't complain.

n0m4n ,

I had the same dilemma.

What worked for me was to buy an old, refurbished, commercial HP laser printer, without the subscription "features". I paid $75 and have saved that much in ink costs, just this year.

archomrade ,

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to use it I have to be within usb-cord range, but small sacrifice for a printer that won't hold itself hostage over outdated credit card information.

ODuffer ,
@ODuffer@lemmy.world avatar

Just get a HP Inkjet bro ^joke!

arken ,

This has nothing to do with Linux. Do you want your printer to work? Are you buying a printer because you need to print things? It's simple.

ConstableJelly ,

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

cley_faye ,

Against the original joke, I'd recommend a samsung one, but their printer division has been bought by HP so…

merthyr1831 ,

I inherited an Canon Pixma MG3600 from a friend who got a new printer of her own, and it's been impressively stable for years now.

A really solid printing experience on Linux; I'd say "plug and play" but I've got it set up for wireless printing and it worked immediately without plugging in!

I've not tried the scanner on Linux but it worked on Mac out of the box without proprietary drivers so I can imagine the same for Linux.

umbraroze ,

My father had a Brother laser printer. It outlived him. (...Anyway. Have you ever had to do Windows tech support for family? Not always nice. Ever had to do Windows printer tech support? Hoo boy. Ever had to do Windows printer tech support when the printer is hooked through a Centronics-to-USB adapter? Uggh. ...though I was kind of surprised that Windows 10 still had built in drivers for the damn thing.)

Me, I bought a Canon laser which technically has Linux drivers but damn me if I ever got it to print more than the CUPS test page. ...actually I'd rather not talk about CUPS. I have too many bad memories about it. (You can't escape the Printer Madness just by using Linux, oh no.)

baseless_discourse ,

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.

elliot_crane ,

My father had a Brother laser printer.

So it was an Uncle laser printer?

(I’m sorry I’ll see myself out)

Landless2029 ,

I'm not even a linux user. Just here to learn. Windows is my daily driver for work and play...

Still all my printers are brother lasers.

My oldest is around 10 years old still running on the same toner... Picked out of the trash from an office move even.

Fedizen ,

A brother laser printer a solid pick

Meron35 ,

Brother has already started to enshitify, Kyocera is an alternative company that does simple laser printers, with easy and cheap to source generic toners

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

I have an Epson inkjet that I'm not going to throw away yet. It's 6 years old though, not sure if they still make it.

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

My gripe with inkjets, expensive / DRM'd cartridges aside, is the ink just dries up or gets used in maintenance cycles whether you print or not.

Or is yours one of the tank models? I think those are less inefficient in that regard, right?

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Mine is a cartridge model, an XP-830 "Small-in-One" that gets used...maybe once a year. As I said I'm not throwing it away yet. Further info: I bought a tablet computer specifically so that I wouldn't have to print out my drawings for use in the wood shop, because I want to stop printing things entirely.

metaStatic ,

Ah, the star trek method

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Something I always enjoy during the TOS era movies is when they pull out actual paper. Like during Wrath of Kahn IIRC they pull out a physical paper book that has Reliant's SSH codes to disable the shields. Another happens during Undiscovered Country when they need to actually speak Klingon, they get out a bunch of paper books. The Federation has a printing office.

dojan ,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

As far as I know, the tank models are just as bad. They need to flush the system, which they do onto a sponge which when saturated means the printer is broken.

wreckedcarzz ,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

HP: furiously taking notes

SexualPolytope , (edited )
@SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Brother printers are great. Probably the only decent printer brand for home usage. My university has free printing, and those are Canon printers. They seem to work fine, so I guess the commercial market is a little different.

Weirdly, my parents have this Samsung M2020W printer, and I gotta say, it's pretty neat. Takes any off-brand toner cartridge. They only need a cartridge every year or so. It's been 3+ years, but no problem so far. That might be an exceptional case, though.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Not all are created equal

XTL ,

I used to have a Samsung laser for quite a few years. Went through maybe three toner cartridges. Eventually it started slipping and I didn't bother finding out if there's a repair available and bought a brother laser instead. Worked pretty great otherwise.

Haven't tried toner transfer on this, but regular printouts are fine and it's much faster.

ChunkMcHorkle ,
@ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world avatar

Eventually it started slipping

If you still have the printer (you may not but I'm going to put this out there for others too) that sounds like a simple roller replacement, and rollers/pickup pads are usually considered "consumables" instead of "parts" because they all wear out over time. This is true for most if not all consumer printers, ink and laser alike.

Replacements should be pretty easy to find for even old printers, and the installation is usually pretty straightforward. Last year I was still able to buy a roller replacement set for a 19 year old HP, and it took me ten minutes and one Phillips head screwdriver to replace them all.

You can also just take out and clean the hell out of anything rubber with isopropyl alcohol, letting it dry thoroughly and then putting it back in, or if possible rotate the rubber on it to present an unused side, I've done all that a few times too.

For pretty much any model printer, search on the printer model number and "maintenance kit" to find available roller/pickup pad replacements for sale, and printer model number plus "service manual" to get replacement instructions if you need them.

qupada ,

Sharp also make great commerical-grade printers that are 100% Linux compatible, we're using these at work: http://global.sharp/products/copier/products/bp_70c65/index.html

They don't really make anything small enough to be a "home" model, this looks like their smallest printer: https://global.sharp/products/copier/products/mx_c358f/index.html (and that's around $1000, if you could even find someone to sell you one).

Blue_Morpho ,

Interestingly a Lemmy user in another thread has a very negative view of Brother because he only uses Brother cutting machines (for craft projects) and it's filled with DRM and HP style lock in.

ichmagrum ,

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

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

There need to be open source "smart" devices. Like, I've read and edited the source code running on my 3D printer. I was able to do that in my own home because it's got an Arduino Mega for a motherboard.

null ,
@null@slrpnk.net avatar

ESPHome has entered the chat.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

I have a couple ESP32s, and the main thing that concerns me is that they utterly rely on the ESP-IDF toolchain. It runs on Espressif's RTOS basically no matter what. They're capable if weird little microcontrollers but they just slightly sketch me out.

Dudewitbow ,

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.

frezik ,

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

Hootz ,

Mines just been sitting in my closet hooked up for like 10 years now, she works whenever I need her.

ToyDork ,
@ToyDork@sh.itjust.works avatar

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?

BabyVi ,

My Brother printer was literally a barn find, it's still working too.

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