linuxmemes

If any representative from Brother is reading this, hear me.

DON'T ENSHITTIFY! You see this? You can own the market if you just LEAVE IT ALONE.

I honestly don't remember my printer brand. And that's a good sign. I bought it years ago, and it now lives under my basement stairs on a static IP via wifi, accepting the on average bimonthly print job that I need from it. Then I walk down, fetch the print, and close the door on it again. I should name it Harry Potter.

I use a canon… so yeah… better get a brother

I've used tons of dot matrix, inkjets and lasers since the 80s. I've used them in MSDOS, ProDOS, Linux, BSD, Windows, MacOS, OSX, and BeOS. I don't know how many I've owned or how many different OS versions but I know I've had exactly 1 printer that wasn't constantly a problem and its a Brother laser printer.

can you recommend a good printer ?

Get a brother laser. 👨

can you tell me how to kill a High Ganzonian ?

Get a laser, brother. 👽

I would take any laser printer with a scanner/copier that doesn't have a subscription model that has Linux drivers for all features .

Brother is the only one I've found to check all the boxes

A "printer"? Oh right, those things we used to spray ink on dead trees back in the 20th century.

Interestingly a Lemmy user in another thread has a very negative view of Brother because he only uses Brother cutting machines (for craft projects) and it's filled with DRM and HP style lock in.

Brother has already started to enshitify, Kyocera is an alternative company that does simple laser printers, with easy and cheap to source generic toners

Brother gets recommended a lot by virtue of being the least shitty option in the hellish wasteland of consumer/office printers. They aren't perfect, but Brother printers have been the only option in the entire office to reliably print from a Linux computer over the network. Honestly, any day I don't have to interact with a printer is a good day.

Just don't update the printer's firmware! Mine's being going great for years now, but I'm scared that I might accidentally update it and the toner will be labeled unauthorised

In fairness you should do this on Windows as well.

95% of home printing needs can be handled by a mono laser. If you need a photo, usually cheaper to print it online or at a supermarket. Only for larger prints might it be cheaper to do it at home, and you'd better be sure to use it often because most inkjets clog like a motherfucker when not in use.

Greatest article ever: https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine

My father had a Brother laser printer. It outlived him. (...Anyway. Have you ever had to do Windows tech support for family? Not always nice. Ever had to do Windows printer tech support? Hoo boy. Ever had to do Windows printer tech support when the printer is hooked through a Centronics-to-USB adapter? Uggh. ...though I was kind of surprised that Windows 10 still had built in drivers for the damn thing.)

Me, I bought a Canon laser which technically has Linux drivers but damn me if I ever got it to print more than the CUPS test page. ...actually I'd rather not talk about CUPS. I have too many bad memories about it. (You can't escape the Printer Madness just by using Linux, oh no.)

I'm a big proponent of buying government surplus office printers. I have this huge print center collater thing that came with more toner than I'll ever use in my life. $55

I do love my Brother:

And miss the ~2020 pricing! (But it should last a long time)

R.I.P. to my real brother though. Forever 29 because heroin.

As of this post, still happily using the initial starter toner ✅

Not just a Linux user, anyone that needs a printer/copier.

Brother laser printers are good for everyone, not just Linux users.

Helped my gfs mom troubleshoot her HP printer (I know, ew. She bought it before we met) and finally figured out from the stupid app that it was out of one color.

The app doesnt indicate this in words though, Oh no. Just a stupid infographic that doesnt say ANYTHING. Just shows a nondescript bar at the top.

Only reason I downloaded it was i thought it would be a bit more user friendly.

Long story short I recommended a brother laser printer because the last time I replaced a cartridge in it was a couple years back and that was after printing things for god knows how long. And mine is old af.

The only reason I ever got rid of my original brother laser printer is because computers stopped coming with parallel ports, and the adapters I tried all sucked.

2nd Brother laser printer is still going strong after 15yrs.

Recently bought a Brother laser printer. We use Linux, macOS, Windows 11, Android and iOS in the house and it just works.

Tbh, get a Brother printer for any OS. At least they don't buy into the shitfuckery that HP and others do with ink and firmware updates.

I'm not even a linux user. Just here to learn. Windows is my daily driver for work and play...

Still all my printers are brother lasers.

My oldest is around 10 years old still running on the same toner... Picked out of the trash from an office move even.

Laser printers are great, althought I've got me a Pantum because I don't anticipate printing more than one page a month.

If you are a casual printer user, just use the local print shop. It's cheaper that way.

Brother Laser

Ironically, the last time i needed a Windows PC was to set up my Brother laser printer. You needed to do it with some utility that was only available for Windows.