looking for a MFC, printer/scanner

farkus888 · 2009-08-25 06:43:23

I am looking for an all in one printer scanner. I need both the printer and the scanner to work in arch linux, and I don't want to spend a week making it happen. I would prefer something that supports ethernet and both features work over the network but that isn't absolutely necessary. After wasting 2 hours looking at printers then looking up their linux support I decided to ask you guys. What do you use that meets my requirements? would you recommend it to someone who hadn't just killed your cat?

mianka · 2009-08-25 09:56:30

HP printers and MFC's are best supported under Linux :
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/su … index.html

sph · 2009-08-25 17:43:45

Have a look at: http://www.openprinting.org/printer_list.cgi

As mianka mentioned HP devices are a good choice.

I'm running a "HP Photosmart C4180 All-in-One" printer that is attached via USB to my server as a network printer (via CUPS) and a network scanner (via SANE) using the "c4100" driver (HPLIP) without problems.

Last edited by sph (2009-08-25 18:02:45)

skottish · 2009-08-25 17:54:12

HP has the added bonus of superior print drivers for Linux.

panosk · 2009-08-26 06:40:52

I recently bought the wireless MFC HP C6380 after research. Hplip software is superb, wireless setup was as easy as it could get, I have full functionality (printing/scanning in highest resolution, ink level monitoring, etc).
Only con, comparing to the Canon I used to use, is the somehow high ink consumption. On the other side, printing results are excellent.

Last edited by panosk (2009-08-26 06:41:31)

farkus888 · 2009-08-26 08:32:29

I knew that HP printers were usually very easy in linux. I was mostly unsure of their scanners because I have never owned or configured any scanner in any OS before. Based on what was mentioned here I went with the HP C4680. Should be in from newegg by the end of the week. Now to go make room for my new printer and monitor.

zenlord · 2009-08-27 07:30:02

In our office we have been using a Brother MFC8860DN for three years now. We use Debian linux exclusively. Very good choice, thinking of buying the MFC8880DN to have a backup for when our first MF should start to lose its feathers... Last week I wrote my first bash script to use together with this device: I have it scan to ftp and our server performs OCR on the scan automatically.

Brother has full linux support. They provide drivers in deb and rpm, but I guess it should not be a problem to get those packages working in arch linux.

I'm quite surprised to see so many HP-fans out here, but probably their drivers are better for linux than they are for windows. The last HP Photosmart-printer had a driver that was 345MB big, and it could not be installed because the printer had been connected to the laptop *prior* to installing the driver. I had to reinstall windows just to get that printer (mostly) working... So no HP printers for me anymore

panosk · 2009-08-27 10:56:22

zenlord wrote:

In our office we have been using a Brother MFC8860DN for three years now. We use Debian linux exclusively. Very good choice, thinking of buying the MFC8880DN to have a backup for when our first MF should start to lose its feathers... Last week I wrote my first bash script to use together with this device: I have it scan to ftp and our server performs OCR on the scan automatically.
Brother has full linux support. They provide drivers in deb and rpm, but I guess it should not be a problem to get those packages working in arch linux.
I'm quite surprised to see so many HP-fans out here, but probably their drivers are better for linux than they are for windows. The last HP Photosmart-printer had a driver that was 345MB big, and it could not be installed because the printer had been connected to the laptop *prior* to installing the driver. I had to reinstall windows just to get that printer (mostly) working... So no HP printers for me anymore

I can confirm that the HP drivers for Windows suck big time. When I turned on my new printer, I first installed it on my laptop. I ran a pacman -S hplip, ran the software, detected my printer over wireless, and was ready within a minute or so. Then I installed the printer on my desktop archer. Same results: I was ready within a minute. Then I booted into Windows XP. I had to download some serious MBs, and when I executed the exe file, installation was aborted halfway, because Windows were not installed on C:. After long research, I found the cure, which was a joke. I had to mount my system drive (E:) as a network drive and perform the installation in there LOL. Anyways, after installation, my whole system was getting very jerky and unresponsive, and cpu usage was getting very high. Didn't bother any more, just uninstalled it completely. Not much of a problem, though, since I have to use Windows rarely for a couple of apps.

Last edited by panosk (2009-08-27 11:34:02)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-25 06:43:23

looking for a MFC, printer/scanner

#2 2009-08-25 09:56:30

Re: looking for a MFC, printer/scanner

#3 2009-08-25 17:43:45

Re: looking for a MFC, printer/scanner

#4 2009-08-25 17:54:12

Re: looking for a MFC, printer/scanner

#5 2009-08-26 06:40:52

Re: looking for a MFC, printer/scanner

#6 2009-08-26 08:32:29

Re: looking for a MFC, printer/scanner

#7 2009-08-27 07:30:02

Re: looking for a MFC, printer/scanner

#8 2009-08-27 10:56:22

Re: looking for a MFC, printer/scanner

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