On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 11:54:16 Richard Englandpdx.limey@gmail.com wrote
So, it's time again for me to> get a new printer/scanner as the old
one> just died.
I hope it isn't too much off-topic to solicit advice on what to get so that it would work flawlessly with Fedora. I'm looking for a rather basic model. When I browse the homepages of manufacturers I can't find any mention of support for Linux. Is there a list somewhere of printer/scanners that are supported by Linux?
As usual you need to know what you want to do, first. All the major manufacturers have supported Linux for years. Generally you only need an actual driver for a USB connected printer or scanner. My advice is that you look for a used HP or Brother laser printer (Craigslist/Kijiji). They last forever and are easily installed/handled by CUPS. Get one with a built-in network card, or find one *really cheap* and buy a network print server for $25-$30. The printer can be put somewhere out of the way (same with wireless capability). You can print directly from any computer or tablet or phone.
The HP and Brother laser printers "just work". The laser printers can sit for weeks, using effectively no power but still available.
If you only want 'basic' service, you should about what you really need and the footprint. I do not know how old my HP-1320 is, at least 20 years. It has a 14" square footprint. The HP-3055 MFD is "newer" at maybe as recent as 2006 (although that could just be the last software update date), much larger and obtrusive. I only keep it really for the scanner since I lent my Brother ADS-1000 scanner to my brother and it seems to have "disappeared" and cannot be found! If you only need scanning to make the odd photocopy, you might find a small standalone scanner will do the job. Much smaller footprint. The Brother scanners need the two free linux drivers installed but the website support is excellent. The ADS series are small, fast and good.
G.
On Sun, 2022-06-19 at 17:58 -0400, R. G. Newbury wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 11:54:16 Richard Englandpdx.limey@gmail.com wrote > So, it's time again for me to> get a new printer/scanner as the old one> just died.
I hope it isn't too much off-topic to solicit advice on what to get so that it would work flawlessly with Fedora. I'm looking for a rather basic model. When I browse the homepages of manufacturers I can't find any mention of support for Linux. Is there a list somewhere of printer/scanners that are supported by Linux?
As usual you need to know what you want to do, first. All the major manufacturers have supported Linux for years. Generally you only need an actual driver for a USB connected printer or scanner. My advice is that you look for a used HP or Brother laser printer (Craigslist/Kijiji). They last forever and are easily installed/handled by CUPS. Get one with a built-in network card, or find one *really cheap* and buy a network print server for $25-$30. The printer can be put somewhere out of the way (same with wireless capability). You can print directly from any computer or tablet or phone.
The HP and Brother laser printers "just work". The laser printers can sit for weeks, using effectively no power but still available.
I'd just add that my Brother WiFi printer/scanner works just as well (using the manufacturer's driver blob which is essentially just a CUPS installation script), so no need to take up a USB port or add a network card. No doubt HP ones would also be fine.
poc
On Mon, 2022-06-20 at 11:08 +0100, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
No doubt HP ones would also be fine.
I have an old HP office printer (P3015) it works well with CUPS for the last several years and the new driverless thing CUPS is currently doing.
Network printers seem to be the best ones, they tend to support PostScript, HPL, or other common languages more than disposable home ones, with specialist drivers that never get fixed, just outdated.
On Mon, Jun 20, 2022, at 3:08 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I'd just add that my Brother WiFi printer/scanner works just as well (using the manufacturer's driver blob which is essentially just a CUPS installation script), so no need to take up a USB port or add a network card. No doubt HP ones would also be fine.
More words of support for the Brother printers, I am using DCP-L2550DW.
I am still using the install tool from Brother but I did just confirm that "brlaser" has now been fully added to Fedora.
You would do: sudo dnf install printer-driver-brlaser.x86_64
I then found it via the cups interface at: http://localhost:631
This worked well with the printer setup with wifi on the network and no USB hooked up. I was testing it on a vanilla XFCE F36 virtualbox host.
Note that scanning needed the extra steps of: sudo dnf install xsane sane-airscan
On Mon, 2022-06-20 at 09:38 -0700, Doug Herr wrote:
On Mon, Jun 20, 2022, at 3:08 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I'd just add that my Brother WiFi printer/scanner works just as well (using the manufacturer's driver blob which is essentially just a CUPS installation script), so no need to take up a USB port or add a network card. No doubt HP ones would also be fine.
More words of support for the Brother printers, I am using DCP- L2550DW.
I am still using the install tool from Brother but I did just confirm that "brlaser" has now been fully added to Fedora.
You would do: sudo dnf install printer-driver-brlaser.x86_64
I then found it via the cups interface at: http://localhost:631
This worked well with the printer setup with wifi on the network and no USB hooked up. I was testing it on a vanilla XFCE F36 virtualbox host.
Note that scanning needed the extra steps of: sudo dnf install xsane sane-airscan
Excellent, thanks. I see that mine is one of the supported devices. I look forward to trying it out.
poc
On Mon, 2022-06-20 at 22:32 +0100, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Mon, 2022-06-20 at 09:38 -0700, Doug Herr wrote:
On Mon, Jun 20, 2022, at 3:08 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I'd just add that my Brother WiFi printer/scanner works just as well (using the manufacturer's driver blob which is essentially just a CUPS installation script), so no need to take up a USB port or add a network card. No doubt HP ones would also be fine.
More words of support for the Brother printers, I am using DCP- L2550DW.
I am still using the install tool from Brother but I did just confirm that "brlaser" has now been fully added to Fedora.
You would do: sudo dnf install printer-driver-brlaser.x86_64
I then found it via the cups interface at: http://localhost:631
This worked well with the printer setup with wifi on the network and no USB hooked up. I was testing it on a vanilla XFCE F36 virtualbox host.
Note that scanning needed the extra steps of: sudo dnf install xsane sane-airscan
Excellent, thanks. I see that mine is one of the supported devices. I look forward to trying it out.
I installed and configured the driver as a dnssd service (using the KDE system settings panel), but I'm getting an error: "Unable to locate printer".
The dnssd daemon is running, as is systemd-resolved and avahi-daemon. I've logged out and in again to no effect.
Journalctl shows nothing relevant (using "-g dnssd" or "-g dns-sd").
poc
On Tue, Jun 21, 2022, at 3:02 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Mon, 2022-06-20 at 22:32 +0100, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Mon, 2022-06-20 at 09:38 -0700, Doug Herr wrote:
On Mon, Jun 20, 2022, at 3:08 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I'd just add that my Brother WiFi printer/scanner works just as well (using the manufacturer's driver blob which is essentially just a CUPS installation script), so no need to take up a USB port or add a network card. No doubt HP ones would also be fine.
More words of support for the Brother printers, I am using DCP- L2550DW.
I am still using the install tool from Brother but I did just confirm that "brlaser" has now been fully added to Fedora.
You would do: sudo dnf install printer-driver-brlaser.x86_64
I then found it via the cups interface at: http://localhost:631
This worked well with the printer setup with wifi on the network and no USB hooked up. I was testing it on a vanilla XFCE F36 virtualbox host.
Note that scanning needed the extra steps of: sudo dnf install xsane sane-airscan
Excellent, thanks. I see that mine is one of the supported devices. I look forward to trying it out.
I installed and configured the driver as a dnssd service (using the KDE system settings panel), but I'm getting an error: "Unable to locate printer".
The dnssd daemon is running, as is systemd-resolved and avahi-daemon. I've logged out and in again to no effect.
Journalctl shows nothing relevant (using "-g dnssd" or "-g dns-sd").
Is Cups running? If so, does it see the printer?
On Tue, 2022-06-21 at 06:54 -0700, Doug Herr wrote:
I installed and configured the driver as a dnssd service (using the KDE system settings panel), but I'm getting an error: "Unable to locate printer".
The dnssd daemon is running, as is systemd-resolved and avahi- daemon. I've logged out and in again to no effect.
Journalctl shows nothing relevant (using "-g dnssd" or "-g dns- sd").
Is Cups running? If so, does it see the printer?
Yes and yes. The CUPS admin page page shows the printer, but the test page in the queue has "Unable to locate printer".
To be clear, the printer does physically work with the Brother driver. On installing the brlaser driver I created a new printer and marked it as default, but didn't uninstall the Brother software. It's possible that this is causing some kind of interference, so I'll uninstall it and try again.
poc
On Tue, 2022-06-21 at 17:30 +0100, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Tue, 2022-06-21 at 06:54 -0700, Doug Herr wrote:
I installed and configured the driver as a dnssd service (using the KDE system settings panel), but I'm getting an error: "Unable to locate printer".
The dnssd daemon is running, as is systemd-resolved and avahi- daemon. I've logged out and in again to no effect.
Journalctl shows nothing relevant (using "-g dnssd" or "-g dns- sd").
Is Cups running? If so, does it see the printer?
Yes and yes. The CUPS admin page page shows the printer, but the test page in the queue has "Unable to locate printer".
To be clear, the printer does physically work with the Brother driver. On installing the brlaser driver I created a new printer and marked it as default, but didn't uninstall the Brother software. It's possible that this is causing some kind of interference, so I'll uninstall it and try again.
I removed the old driver and it made no difference.
Since this is getting off-topic wrt the original thread subject, I'm going to re-post as a new topic.
poc
-
Doug Herr -
Patrick O'Callaghan -
R. G. Newbury -
Tim