I've personally own 2 of the low end Brothers ($150 or so they cost)
-- mainly for scanning B&W documents faxing and light color printing.
They work very will with Linux with both the printer driver and SANE
drivers (even the ADF works when the application is aware of multipage
scanning e.g. gscan2pdf) are provided as RPM packages that are very
easy to setup. I'd assume the more expensive units have much better
print and scan quality -- not that the MFC-465CN and MFC-5460 are bad
units... they just don't do the best, or fastest, high-res scans and
color printing. They also have great support for MacOS. Also if you
look on eBay you can find the inks for a very good price.
There is also supposed to be support for the HP devices, but I've
never tried them. My concern with HP is that their Windows drivers are
generally bloated and utter crap. While the focus hear is Linux many
of us have to use Windows or are sharing the device with Windows users
and supporting them is a great concern. I've never had a Brother issue
with the Windows drivers. Never had to reinstall one, troubleshoot it,
etc. It just worked. On the other hand with HP I've had nightmares
with them. This year's models and models from 2003 and everything in
between. They are all problematic. They do not adhere to any Windows
standard, e.g. they don't use the standard USB printing system,
instead HP has their own they wrote. You can not manually install the
drivers in Windows (using the INF files)... instead you have to
install the full 300mb "suite" of crap just to scan and print. No
thank you but I don't need the ink Nazi to remind me that my black is
20% or that I should buy the new ink from www.hp.com. They constantly
have connection issues, need the drivers reinstalled, etc, to fix that
sort of issue. I make money fixing them for people but I'd rather not
have to deal with it, they are a headache. What surprises me the most
is after so many years they still can't get it right.
On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 3:07 AM, Richard
I hate to ask this and run the risk of starting a long drawn-out exchange of this printers good, this one sucks, like that. But with that fear on the table...I have an Epson Stylus Photo RX600, several years old now, but dying: the info/preview screen has quit. I have no idea what it may cost to fix/replace it. I am looking to consider a new printer. Linux compatibility is highest requirement as my current model has some issues. Biggest complaint, prior to withdrawal of the preview/info screen from the land of the well-functioning: paper handling. Very picky about number of sheets and precise loading. 100 sheet capacity listed was a goal I think, not a fact. Unless carefully loaded and bowed to with humble obeisance it will run multiple sheets together until corrected with a smaller load amount, not really close to 100. For me this results in lots of re-loads after having to listen to the printer complain about running out.
Multi-function with fax, copy, scan, print would be nice. I print few photos of my own, but some for others just because I can and it does well. Would consider other brands but have been desirous in the past of supporting HP and Epson because of their purported linux support. At least as compared to Canon. Ink-jet is good as I am not in laserjet cost territory.
Suggestions? Even general guidance is good. I don't mind doing my homework here, but am finding the plethora of options a little daunting right off.
Thanks for steering.
Richard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
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