[kwlug-disc] Linux Friendly Cost Effective Ink Jet Printer/Scanner

[Chris Irwin]

On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 01:34:14PM -0400, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
>Here are the questions:
>- Any other printer/scanner brands that work well with Linux (Epson,
>Brother)?

Brother supplies some linux packages as well, but I found them to be 
problematic and didn't bother using them (32-bit only, don't get updated 
as frequently as my distribution).

When purchasing my current printer, my requirements were:

* Print over the network using Postscript and PCL
* Scan to email using SMTP

I settled on an OKI MB451 that met my needs. It's a tad big and only B/W 
(so not what you're looking for), but no special drivers or software 
required.  At work we've got an HP-something I think which we use the 
same way.

I only use postscript, but our software at work talks PCL, so if I ever 
needed to work from home *and* test printing, I could do that. This has 
never happened... But I'm ready...

Just be careful about some of the more inexpensive printers. For 
example, I had to argue to avoid a restocking fee when returning a 
printer that lied about it's capabilities on the box (scanning to a 
windows driver that auto-attaches a PDF into outlook is not "scan to 
email").

>I don't want a laser printer since I need to print in colour 
>occasionally.

Colour lasers exist. My Brother was colour, and I was quite pleased with 
it. My only complaint was it didn't have a scanner, and since I rarely 
used colour, I went B/W.

Note that much like there's a lot of variation in inkjet capabilities 
and quality, there is the same for laser. Some have slow colour printing 
because they effectively feed the page through four times (CMYK), while 
some others can do a proper single-pass colour print.

As with any printer, reading reviews should identify this (via PPM 
metrics)

-- 
Chris Irwin

email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
 xmpp:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
  web: https://chrisirwin.ca