Brother DCP-7065dn printer with Fedora 19

[Fred Smith]

On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 11:44:06PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> | 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.

thanks for the reply and extra info!

> 
> 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)

wow! I paid 129 US at amazon. even at that rate it's inexpensive.

> 
> + 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.

Thanks for the hint on the cartridge suicide. I've got a Brother
laser printer (HL2070N) that I've had for some years and have been
extremely happy with it, though for it I don't need to use Brother's
drivers. This printer uses some kind of LED with sensor to detect
when the toner is getting low and stops the printer from working when
it thinks the toner is low. the workaround I've seen is to cover the
window in the cartridge with black tape, but I haven't found it to
do anything useful. Nevertheless, a cartridge lasts me for a year or
two, so it's not a big thing. I've been buying "real" Brother toner
at New Egg for around 40 bucks, but I more recently got two no-name
refills for ten bucks each plus shipping (from someone who had bought
them just before his printer died) so I'm probably set for life in 
that regard.

I was looking at these devices for my wife, who is a dedicated Windoze
user, so even if it ever gets to where I can't use it, she should still
be able to.

> 
> - 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.

I wonder how many of these kitchen-sink devices (multifunction all in one)
actually work out of the box on Linux. I haven't seen reviews of any that
do, but then I haven't seen very many reviews of such devices at all,
so maybe I'm just not aware of them.

We also have a Brother MFC at work that I've been using with Linux
(Centos 5) and it works great, but again using Brother's drivers.

Oh well, time will tell if its money well-spent or not.

Thanks again for the communication.

Fred

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