Years ago, Brother printers seemed to be one of the few feasible options. What’s the printer landscape like today? Are there any plug and play options that aren’t part of some ink scam?
Brother printers are plug and play for me.
+1 Once you try Brother printers, you never go back.
+2 WiFi b&w Brother laser with aftermarket toner, haven’t looked back.
I love mine, it just works. I have Linux, macOS, and Windows devices printing to mine flawlessly.
Definitely. Mine just works immediately without any issues.
Long story short: if your printer supports IPP Everywhere (it probably does) you don’t need drivers or any sort of software other than CUPS.
This is the correct answer. IPP Everywhere support is often advertised as AirPrint and sometimes as Mopria, which all means that it will work with CUPS without extra drivers.
In fact, with the upcoming version 3, CUPS will drop direct support for non-IPP printers.
I have an HP LaserJet P1005 from 15 years ago which mostly works fine with Hplip except that every once in a while it asks me to reinstall the proprietary plugin needed. I’m taking note of how other brands seem to work better but to be honest I print so little since I digitally sign everything that once I run out of toner it’s far cheaper for me to have something printed in a shop than to replace it.
My Pantum P2500W has been seamless across many distros. Its a cheap little laser printer that costs usually sub-$100.
All inkjet printers are an ink scam. If you don’t need color, or need it infrequently, get a b/w laser printer and be done with it. I bought a used HP Laserjet 2430 back with Ubuntu 18 and never looked back. I print a lot, and just a month ago broke into a toner cartridge I bought five years ago.
Brother laser printers work great on the network.
HP printers seem to work and even have dedicated linux software, like a print manager
Afaik, most of them are supported. Haven’t had any problems with a printer in linux. Linux uses CUPS and CUPS is made by apple, so, I thought, most of printers are supported by it.
And you could also search for drivers on manufacturer’s page, there’ll be linux version.
CUPS is made by apple
IIRC CUPS started independently and then apple employed the main dev. After a few years he then left apple and forked his own project under the Linux Foundation, which is now the “proper” upstream
If it’s a network printer and it lists Postscript and/or PCL6 support on its specs it should be good for at least basic printing. I still use my Brother laser though, haven’t needed to replace it yet.
I have no idea if this is common, but the HP I have supports both postscript and PDF (and PCL-something), which makes my life much easier.
