A printer fully fonctionnal ?

[Coline]

Hello,

My uncle is looking for a good printer working well on Linux.

Actually, I have a Brother DCP-J132W for 3 years. I print a lot (about 10 pages a day) but this printer is not sold anymore.

Before that, I tried a HP printer but it was terrible. My uncle wants a "all-in-one" and prints especially pictures (he is a photograph). The quality of my Brother printer is enough good for that. He wants to check the ink's level (on the printer or in the OS), be able to print some standard pictures (10x15, 10x13, etc.) and I really want to have no problem with the hardware. (For example, my parents had a HP printer and they had to reinstall it very often...I never understood why !).

Do you have some advices ?

Thanks you for reading ! :)

[phenest]

You can search here:
http://www.openprinting.org/printers
Find the printer you like, and then see if it's supported.

[roseway]

I use an HP Envy 4523 which does everything you ask and works perfectly on Debian Stable, except that I needed to install the more recent version of hplip from Backports. It needs hplip 3.15.11 or later.

[Coline]

Thanks you !

[phenest]

Don't forget to post back and tell us what printer you chose. It'll help someone else who has the same question.

[Coline]

With pleasure ! But don't expect that too soon.

[shep]

Before that, I tried a HP printer but it was terrible. My uncle wants a "all-in-one" and prints especially pictures (he is a photograph). The quality of my Brother printer is enough good for that. He wants to check the ink's level (on the printer or in the OS), be able to print some standard pictures (10x15, 10x13, etc.) and I really want to have no problem with the hardware. (For example, my parents had a HP printer and they had to reinstall it very often...I never understood why !).

All-in-one printers present a challenge to unix like systems. If you look at the dmesg you will see that usb ports are assigned a device such as a printer or scanner. My understanding is that cups and sane do not allow for sharing a usb port between the two of them. Hewlett Packard provides the hplip system for linux that will reassign the usb port to scan or print. Hplip essentially utilizes python scripts for cups/sane and only supports HP. I personally use a Canon scanner on usb and a Brother Monochrome laser on ethernet. With a hardware phone modem or a lucent software modem, it is possible to set up Xsane to scan and fax. Essentially you can duplicate all the functions of an all-in-one.

It would be possible to mix usb scanning with either wireless or ethernet printing and use other manufacturers devices. Be aware that printing a large 10x15 color picture over wireless b/g is extremely slow.

The issue with your parents having to reinstall an HP printer was likely due to the use of dhcp printer address in Windows. A brief power outage can result in devices being reassigned a different address. Ideally, it is best to assign a static IP to a network printer.

[sgian]

I've had good luck with hp printers usually, so I'm surprised to hear that you had problems. I did have trouble with Gnome (both Ubuntu and Debian) and my 3630 Deskjet because it's version of hplip was too old to include my printer. I don't like installing hplip from their website because it keeps wanting to update which requires reinstallation. The scanner and printer both work wirelessly, I vaguely remember having to tweak a computer to get it to work but I might be mixing memories with Gnome memories. However, ink levels only seem to work with the hplip gui which I don't think is worth the trouble of reinstalling with every update.

[Roken]

I'm a fan of Canon printers. I've had three and had no problems getting each fully functional in Linux (including the CD printing on my last one, current one doesn't have the functionality)

[Coline]

Hello everybody,

Thanks you for your advices and explanations.

So, basically, I have the choice between HP, Canon or Epson. :p

It's pretty hard to choose a good printer (quality, cost per page, drivers on Linux, etc...!) but I'll manage it ! ^^