Brother DCP-7065dn printer with Fedora 19

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Fred Smith <fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us>

| I've been looking for a cheap multifunction printer/kitchen-sink device,
| so given your success, I went to amazon and ordered one of the same thing.
| Please cross your fingers for me! ;-) ;-)

I will cross my fingers.

Here's a sort of review and some hints.

+ great capabilities
  + laser printer
  + duplex printing (i.e. it can print on both sides of a page)
  + flatbed scanner
  + Automatic Document Feeder (one-side scanning only)
  + ethernet and USB interfaces
  + can work as a copy machine without involving the computer

+ very inexpensive, especially on sale (Canadian $100)

+ Brother provides Linux drivers that seem to work

But:

- big (multi-function machines seem to be)

- noisy (but only when printing and a few minutes after)

- toner cartridges don't last a long time and have a suicide mechanism.

  This message gives a procedure for bypassing the suicide:
  <http://forums.redflagdeals.com/amazon-ca-brother-dcp7065dn-3-1-monochrome-duplex-network-laser-79-no-ehf-free-ship-1225453/4/#post16099066>
  This procedure gave a lot of extra life to my first cartridge.

  After-market cartridges are quite a bit cheaper than Brother ones.

  The bundled cartiridge has reduced life and is missing a part
  needed if it is to be refilled.

- the drivers are proprietary, promising a number of problems

  - when Brother doesn't care any longer, the printer will
    soon stop working on Linux

  - if something breaks, you are dependent on Brother fixing it

  - the drivers need to be installed on each machine that uses the
    printer.  This isn't an automatic process.

  - they only try to support a small number of distros.

When I bought it, I assumed that there were open source drivers since
the many Brother laser printers I've used over perhaps 15 years have
had them.

I'd have paid a few dollars more for a printer that had an open
interface supported by an open source driver.  But since I got this, I
haven't hunted down anything matching this requirement.