Hi,
I am looking for a cheap printer that is available in Europe. I haven’t had one for long as I do not want to install printer drivers, modules or other third party software/repos with unknown development means / methods and without passing our testing/review stages. Anyway, afaik, today there are better chances to get devices that work natively on Linux distributions through standardized communications means.
My experience with that is therefore limited, and experience for an appropriate device is appreciated. The cheaper the better, it just needs to print texts and QR codes that can be read, that’s all, so nothing special. Being able to scan or copy would be great too of course, but that is not a requirement. USB would be preferred, but wifi or rj45 is fine too.
I own an HP laser printer and would definitely buy it again. HP printers are well supported in Fedora (hplip) without the need for additional software.
I bought a used machine (M402dn) for around 80 Euro years ago and it still prints very clear. Cheap toner cartridges are available from 3rd party vendors and the thing has an Ethernet port, so the whole family can print, including from phones.
And the maintainer on our side seems to be quite active as well. There seems to be not yet efforts to add the newest version, but that seems to not contain fixes or so anyway, and issues seem to get fixed quickly through new builds.
Thanks, I guess that’s the information I was seeking
It indeed looks at first glance better than it is in many cases: many printers of HP on their supported list need an additional proprietary so-called “plugin”. So in such cases hplip does not bring the advantage. The most interesting models available in my area unfortunately fall into that category, but I have not yet checked the whole list.
Yeah I take that into consideration too.
I have to check what cheap printer I find that is available in my area and that works out with existing software of our repos and without bypassing our security and stability guarantees by configs, plugins or other third party software/repos. My favorite would be one that is compatible to both suggestions, to keep as much flexibility as possible and to not rely on any non-default package on the long term (I want to use that thing for a few years :). I’ll post if I find one.
Anyway, thanks everyone for the advice, that contains sufficient hints and links that should solve the remaining questions
I agree that penalties is indeed a harsh word: it is an additional package that needs to be installed, and it creates some dependencies that could be avoided by some alternatives. As the package is not part of the major Fedora editions, there are some uncertainties about its maintenance when one wants to use a printer on the long term, but so far the maintainer seems reliable. But of course less packages is better than more. The major issue I see is that many printers need additional proprietary software, beyond hplip. So far I found one that is available at an “acceptable” price (although more than I wanted to spend) and that does not need proprietary software additional to the hplip. Unfortunately, that one seems not compatible to IPP/AirSmart (at least it’s not on the list), and so would make me solely dependent on the maintenance of hplip. But that would be acceptable and much better than what I feared when I started checking for printers after such a long time. Anyway, I guess I will need to get a little deeper into IPP,AirSmart and hplip before making a decision
I found one printer that supports hplip without proprietary “plug-in” and is also supported by IPP Everywhere with v1.1, and which goes along with acceptable costs: HP LaserJet Pro 4002dn. Acceptable price to buy (at least in Switzerland), and low printing costs. According to HP it is also certified for AirPrint. I’ll have some checks and then maybe I take that one.
Thanks again to everyone for the quick help The hints for hplip and IPP/AirSmart were very valuable
I can confirm that the Brother HL-L2445DW works perfectly with Fedora/Linux without the need to install any driver or other software: it supports officially AirPrint and Mopria, and although not officially mentioned in the IPP Everywhere certifications, the many reports on the Internet that Brother devices work fine with that do also apply to this one. Quality is fine (including for pictures) and corresponds to what I expect from the technical data of the printer model, Duplex works too. All works through CUPS.
If people from other distros end up here: you might need to manually install ipp-usb if you use the USB port, which seems to be available on most distributions but not installed by default in all cases (on Fedora, it is installed by default).
I installed the device and tested it through USB: 100% in this “category”. I could “see” the device with the Etherhet/RJ-45 connection, but did not install+test it that way as I did not want to setup a network/IPs as I do not need this. I can only guess that this would have worked as well. WiFi was not tested at all.
(I write this a little report-like as it seems people from Linux communities already asked about this printer & IPP, but no one seems to have provided test results yet)
About the choice to not get a HP as I originally planned:
Since the certifications around IPP (ipp everywhere, mopria, airprint) seem to be well backed by organizations and since they are a (if not THE) preferred means by CUPS, I see no risk for future compatibility issues with that device, so I did not see the need to have hplip as backup, and that way I have no need for additional packages. I was a little shocked when I read what HP devices in the recent years imposed (DRM-like cartridges that impose high prices of HP, the need to register printers or printers that worked only if permanently connected to the Internet → it remains a little unclear to me what applies to which device and what might be later installed/activated by firmware updates automatically or so → therefore, I removed HP from the list of candidates to safe the time of untangling all the available data on this; the DRM/cartridge issue itself already bumped the price to a level that is higher than what I wanted). The other thing is that I saw many reports about Brother devices being preferred by many people from Linux communities and that they seem to be traditionally reliable in this context.
