I use Arch btw
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BTW, I've had my Brother laser MFP for 11 years and still on the original toner.
I been through about 10 TN-450 cartridges in my Brother printer and can count on one hand how many jams I've had. And I'm pretty sure they were all because my kid would take paper out and leave a page sitting crooked in the tray.
Recently had to replace the drum.
I had the same dilemma.
What worked for me was to buy an old, refurbished, commercial HP laser printer, without the subscription "features". I paid $75 and have saved that much in ink costs, just this year.
This has nothing to do with Linux. Do you want your printer to work? Are you buying a printer because you need to print things? It's simple.
Mines just been sitting in my closet hooked up for like 10 years now, she works whenever I need her.
My Brother printer was literally a barn find, it's still working too.
I got a Brother Laser Printer from goodwill for dirt cheap that has run great for a long time, havent even put new toner in it yet.
tbh i like my canon mf3010, no useless crap, no wifi, it just prints and scans, there's no drm and cartridges last for a long time
I inherited a Brother laser printer from a lab I was once in. Apparently the toner only says it's almost out via an infrared sensor. I read you can tape over the part on the toner cartridge and it will keep printing until it actually runs out.
I've printed so many more things after I did that, it's actually still going now.
As other have said, brother and canon are probably your best bet. Nothing fancy is really needed, but just print.
Been using an old HP Laser printer for like forever and it still works pretty well. Havent had a single problem with it
old
laser
That's the key
Brother just has the most recent ones, but if you can find an old laser the brand almost doesn't matter.
made me realize I have had my brother printer for about 10 years now.
Looked down at my printer and realized it was a Brother. Didn't have to do anything special, it just worked.
I don't know, my Brother printed definitely has DRM/lock-in toner cartridges. And if only one of them gets too low the whole thing stops working. Still can't get double sided to work reliably
So I call bs on their fandom
lol so true, however I have had a Samsung color laser wifi printer for 10+ years, worked flawlessly in linux. It was years before they got bought by HP
"oh, I might look into those"
finishes reading your comment
"fuck you for playing with my heart like that, I've been hurt before"
Mine just broke and I was so upset :(
Brother kinda let me down recently, how can I trust any printer brands?
I use an Epson EcoTank, and I love it. I can print photos (and have).
I finally convinced my wife to get a brother laser printer after she went through like 5 HP printers. We have had the thing for almost 10 years and just had to change the toner. I can print from every computer, tablet, and phone in the house with no issues.
It's bliss, isn't it?
I rarely need to print, but when I do, it's always something important - typically something I have to physically print, sign, and send back. I just click "print" and never worry about it. Haven't been let down in the 11 years I've had this one (except that one time it was out of paper lol).
Brother printers have been a recommendation under Windows users for a long time too already. Not that they're perfect either but pretty much everyone's fed up with the bullshit of the likes of HP.
dot matrix printer or nothing at all
I remember trying to print HUGE gamefaqs guides on my dot matrix printer back in the day. Thing literally ran for over 24 hours to print some of the larger ones.
I can still hear them.
And it was also cool that when it seemed like it was out of ink, you could pop open the cartridge, spray the ribbon with WD-40, and get another 200-300 pages out of it.
This post is a reminder that I might have to take another look at used printers for sale, get something that won't suck whenever I need to print RPG character sheets and other stuff for tabletop gaming