I'm having to replace my 5-year old desktop printer. Like any good project, I start with requirements! 1. desktop printer. 2. the manufacturer provides real support for the printer running on Fedora as well as windows-7. 3. has printing, scanning, and copying. 4. color and black-and-white, colors are correct when printing from Fedora as well as when from windows-7. 5. at least 600 dpi. 6. USB cable connection (not ethernet or wi-fi) between printer and workstation's tower. 7. either laser or LED, not ink-jet (I'm in a very low-humidity climate). I am especially concerned with requirement #1, and that's why I'm asking this list. What fulfils all the above requirements?
Support needs to be more than simply providing a driver for me to download. The at least 600 DPI has to be real, not merely "effective", "simulated", etc. My now dead printer, a Xerox Workcentre 6015, claimed either 1200x1200 or 1200x2400 resolution, but I only got 600 real dots per inch, both in windows-7 and in Fedora. When printing from Fedora, colors were not even close, but were ok when printing from windows-7.
Which is better overall: laser or LED?
Thank-you for your advice. Bill.
Correction: I come to this list mainly for advice relating to requirement #'s 2 (Fedora support) and 4 (color), not requirement #1.
I have always had good luck with the HP family of printers. A decent laser desktop will set you back $50- $100. They have models you can spec out to your requirements. Installation has usually been straight forward and I believe color profiles are available for specific programs such as GIMP. Good luck on your hunt.
On 04/23/2018 11:26 AM, fred roller wrote:
I have always had good luck with the HP family of printers. A decent laser desktop will set you back $50- $100. They have models you can spec out to your requirements. Installation has usually been straight forward and I believe color profiles are available for specific programs such as GIMP. Good luck on your hunt.
I use a Brother 3170CDW laser at home for printing (600x2400 max.). I've never checked the actual dot levels, but the driver they provide seems to work fine and does let you set the resolution. I use a Canon Iriscan for a scanner, but my requirements at home aren't huge.
At the office, we use a plethora of different devices. The most common are HP 8600 printer/scanner devices (inkjet) and a few HP M177fws (color lasers). The scanners work fine using HPLIP and XSane. Not sure about the connectivity they offer...we have them on the network. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital ricks@alldigital.com - - AIM/Skype: therps2 ICQ: 22643734 Yahoo: origrps2 - - - - The gene pool could use a little chlorine. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Good inputs everyone. Thank-you.
I anticipated Brother would be one recommended company. HP was slightly surprising. Brother does offer LED printers and multi-functions. I have not yet found any LED printers from HP. Does HP make LED color printers and multi-functions?
The only connection I'll want between workstation and printer is via USB cable. No network.
An HP laser desktop for 50-100? Is that color, and is it multi-function?
My experience with support matches that of ToddAndMargo.
After doing back-ups this evening and upgrading to Fedora-27 tomorrow, I'll start searching Brother and HP. I hope their searches are smarter than the job search in this state's job search site, and that I can find what I want without busting my budget too severely.
On 04/25/2018 03:13 PM, home user via users wrote:
Good inputs everyone. Thank-you.
I anticipated Brother would be one recommended company. HP was slightly surprising. Brother does offer LED printers and multi-functions. I have not yet found any LED printers from HP. Does HP make LED color printers and multi-functions?
The only connection I'll want between workstation and printer is via USB cable. No network.
An HP laser desktop for 50-100? Is that color, and is it multi-function?
My experience with support matches that of ToddAndMargo.
After doing back-ups this evening and upgrading to Fedora-27 tomorrow, I'll start searching Brother and HP. I hope their searches are smarter than the job search in this state's job search site, and that I can find what I want without busting my budget too severely.
Don't forget to look at Xerox. One is the WorkCentre 6027. It's LED, claims 1200 x 2400 dpi and their website has Linux drivers. I have no experience with it, but it may fit the bill for you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital ricks@alldigital.com - - AIM/Skype: therps2 ICQ: 22643734 Yahoo: origrps2 - - - - "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick" - - themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - - -- Winston Churchill - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
On 04/25/2018 06:41 PM, Rick Stevens wrote:
On 04/25/2018 03:13 PM, home user via users wrote:
Good inputs everyone. Thank-you.
I anticipated Brother would be one recommended company. HP was slightly surprising. Brother does offer LED printers and multi-functions. I have not yet found any LED printers from HP. Does HP make LED color printers and multi-functions?
The only connection I'll want between workstation and printer is via USB cable. No network.
An HP laser desktop for 50-100? Is that color, and is it multi-function?
My experience with support matches that of ToddAndMargo.
After doing back-ups this evening and upgrading to Fedora-27 tomorrow, I'll start searching Brother and HP. I hope their searches are smarter than the job search in this state's job search site, and that I can find what I want without busting my budget too severely.
Don't forget to look at Xerox. One is the WorkCentre 6027. It's LED, claims 1200 x 2400 dpi and their website has Linux drivers. I have no experience with it, but it may fit the bill for you.
Okidata sells LED printers, but they are expensive. On the other hand, they never break. Extraordinary tech support too. (Disclaimer: I sell Okidata.)
Xerox: That's what my now-dead all-in-one was. Print quality was merely good for black text on white background, poor for white text and black background, and terrible for color. The drivers were in the Xerox web site, but support beyond that? Forget it.
Okidata: you're correct: expensive. Definitely over my budget.
Brother: I wanted more info than what was in the web site. The web site didn't work well. I couldn't find a number to call. I tried the chat. In several minutes, I advanced to #1 in the queue. Then a minute or two later, I dropped down to #2, and stayed there for a while before being restored to #1. Then I waited over a hour, and then gave up.
HP: I chose the color laser jet pro mfp m180nw. I would have preferred an M281 FDW (it has auto duplex), but that was over my budget.
It's arrived, but so far I can't get things set up correctly. I'll start a new thread for that.
I thank everyone for their inputs. This thread is closed.
On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:28:04 -0000 home user via users wrote:
- has printing, scanning, and copying.
Good luck getting scanning to work. It may not be impossible, but the available info on what scanners can work with linux is microscopic. (I gave up and use a networked device and do my scanning from a windows virtual machine).
The HP all-in-one devices used to be pretty good about linux support, but I don't know if that is true any longer. The hplip package provided the support.
On Mon, 2018-04-23 at 14:45 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:28:04 -0000 home user via users wrote:
- has printing, scanning, and copying.
Good luck getting scanning to work. It may not be impossible, but the available info on what scanners can work with linux is microscopic. (I gave up and use a networked device and do my scanning from a windows virtual machine).
The HP all-in-one devices used to be pretty good about linux support, but I don't know if that is true any longer. The hplip package provided the support.
Interesting. I did not realize that was not something that was not commonly working now. My Epson Artisan 730 works very well for scanning. I don't remember going thru that much trouble getting it working but maybe I blocked out the trauma. Not helpful for the original question tho, since it is an ink jet. For scanning I use "iscan" which is for Epson only it seems.
On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 12:45 PM, Tom Horsley horsley1953@gmail.com wrote:
The HP all-in-one devices used to be pretty good about linux support, but I don't know if that is true any longer. The hplip package provided the support.
This isn't any help for the OP who specified that he didn't want an inkjet or networked printer, but my relatively new HP-6968 all-in-one works quite well for printing, scanning and faxing with the stock hplip driver. I can't say that I've done careful checks to ensure that the colors match exactly, but I have checked to see that the photos printed from a Windows 10 system look identical to those from my Fedora system.
--Greg
On 04/23/2018 10:28 AM, home user via users wrote:
I'm having to replace my 5-year old desktop printer. Like any good project, I start with requirements!
- desktop printer.
- the manufacturer provides real support for the printer running on Fedora as well as windows-7.
- has printing, scanning, and copying.
- color and black-and-white, colors are correct when printing from Fedora as well as when from windows-7.
- at least 600 dpi.
- USB cable connection (not ethernet or wi-fi) between printer and workstation's tower.
- either laser or LED, not ink-jet (I'm in a very low-humidity climate).
I am especially concerned with requirement #1, and that's why I'm asking this list. What fulfils all the above requirements?
Support needs to be more than simply providing a driver for me to download. The at least 600 DPI has to be real, not merely "effective", "simulated", etc. My now dead printer, a Xerox Workcentre 6015, claimed either 1200x1200 or 1200x2400 resolution, but I only got 600 real dots per inch, both in windows-7 and in Fedora. When printing from Fedora, colors were not even close, but were ok when printing from windows-7.
Which is better overall: laser or LED?
Thank-you for your advice. Bill.
Hi Bill,
For printing support, if the manufacturer doesn't support Linux, check for a supporting ppd file at CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) ppd's website: http://openprinting.org/printers
For scanning, check out SANE's (Common Unix Scanning System [cuss]) list of supported scanners: http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html
To configure saned for network printing, I wrote a How To which Qoppa (PDF Studio) published for me:
https://kbpdfstudio.qoppa.com/how-to-set-up-your-scanner-to-work-with-sane-a...
My three favorite scanning tools are Simple Scan, xsane, and PDF Studio.
HTH, -T
On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:16:31 -0700 ToddAndMargo wrote:
For scanning, check out SANE's (Common Unix Scanning System [cuss]) list of supported scanners: http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html
I hope it is better now. The last time I was trying to find a working scanner I went through the entire list of "fully" supported devices and none of them were being sold any longer :-(.
I have always found HP support to he better than other manufacturers. Their drivers are available....they seem to have no problems when it come to multi-function, and their colors are as close as can be to perfect. But YMMV....
On Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:53 PM Tom Horsley horsley1953@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:16:31 -0700 ToddAndMargo wrote:
For scanning, check out SANE's (Common Unix Scanning System [cuss]) list of supported scanners: http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html
I hope it is better now. The last time I was trying to find a working scanner I went through the entire list of "fully" supported devices and none of them were being sold any longer :-(. _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
On 04/24/2018 10:53 AM, Tom Horsley wrote:
On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:16:31 -0700 ToddAndMargo wrote:
For scanning, check out SANE's (Common Unix Scanning System [cuss]) list of supported scanners: http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html
I hope it is better now. The last time I was trying to find a working scanner I went through the entire list of "fully" supported devices and none of them were being sold any longer :-(.
If you ask the guys over on
sane-devel sane-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
there are some testing lists of devices.
I always despise those "supported devices" lists. They are never current and get used as an excuse for you stuff not working. "It is not supported" versus "they are no longer made". Me thinks it is on purpose at times
On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 07:16:31AM -0700, ToddAndMargo wrote:
On 04/23/2018 10:28 AM, home user via users wrote:
I'm having to replace my 5-year old desktop printer. Like any good project, I start with requirements!
- desktop printer.
- the manufacturer provides real support for the printer running on Fedora as well as windows-7.
- has printing, scanning, and copying.
- color and black-and-white, colors are correct when printing from Fedora as well as when from windows-7.
- at least 600 dpi.
- USB cable connection (not ethernet or wi-fi) between printer and workstation's tower.
- either laser or LED, not ink-jet (I'm in a very low-humidity climate).
I am especially concerned with requirement #1, and that's why I'm asking this list. What fulfils all the above requirements?
Support needs to be more than simply providing a driver for me to download. The at least 600 DPI has to be real, not merely "effective", "simulated", etc. My now dead printer, a Xerox Workcentre 6015, claimed either 1200x1200 or 1200x2400 resolution, but I only got 600 real dots per inch, both in windows-7 and in Fedora. When printing from Fedora, colors were not even close, but were ok when printing from windows-7.
Which is better overall: laser or LED?
Thank-you for your advice. Bill.
Hi Bill,
For printing support, if the manufacturer doesn't support Linux, check for a supporting ppd file at CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) ppd's website: http://openprinting.org/printers
For scanning, check out SANE's (Common Unix Scanning System [cuss]) list of supported scanners: http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html
To configure saned for network printing, I wrote a How To which Qoppa (PDF Studio) published for me:
w-to-set-up-your-scanner-to-work-with-sane-and-pdf-studio-under-fedora-27-linuxs-systemd/
My three favorite scanning tools are Simple Scan, xsane, and PDF Studio.
HTH, -T
For what it's worth to you, Brother printers work really well on Linux. I've got a Brother DCP7065DN at home, and having installed the Brother drivers on my Centos-7 box, I can print or scan easily.
I admit, I have it connected to the network because its much easier than dealing with sharing on both the host and clients, but I expect you could so a USB onnection and share it if other systems need it.
like the poster above, I find that simplescan works, as well as the scanner app in Sane (xsane).
One thing,, if you go with a Brother multifunction unit, be sure to download the driver insstaller, NOT the individual driver files. You may have to dig around to find the right file, but it exists and works once you find it.
good luck!
Fred
[snip]
One thing,, if you go with a Brother multifunction unit, be sure to download the driver insstaller, NOT the individual driver files. You may have to dig around to find the right file, but it exists and works once you find it.
If the printer has an installation disk my experience has been that the more Linux friendly like HP or Brother will usually have a Linux install directory on the disk. While the disk will not auto load and install a read me file will normally have the instructions with the needed files for that particular model; and, in some cases troubleshooting. Worth a look, esp if the Penguin is on the box. Caveat, it has been awhile since I dealt with one.
-- Fred
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Doug H. -
Eddie O'Connor -
fred roller -
Fred Smith -
Greg Woods -
home user -
Rick Stevens -
Todd Chester -
ToddAndMargo
-
Tom Horsley