Hello all!
I was trying to find an ‘All and one’ color laser printer that would ‘just work’. I currently have a Canon G6000 - which is probably the very worst brand to use under Linux from what I have read - and also struggled to try to get to work. It seems Brother and HP’s have the most 'Linux friendly ’ printers. Any suggestions and tips?
I’m new to ‘Rocky linux’ (8.10) - but not new to linux. I have an old SuperMicro X8 that had Windows 10 on and that I was using for VM’s but decided to go full Linux since it does not support Windows 11 in the future. So far I’m liking 8.10 since it supports my LSI Mega raid card interface and AMD video and HDMI sound hardware.
I can connect to it via ‘connect to a network printer’ - and Rocky sends print jobs to it- but nothing prints. On Windows - it even shows a dialog that indicates waiting for ‘network print job to complete’. I’ll get back to you after I try using that ppd. As side note I installed ‘Gutenprint’ and the ‘bjnp’ backend also.
I have a Brother MFC-L3780CDW, and it just works. I’m sure there are cheaper ones, but at the time, I wanted one with a wired connection (they’re getting harder to find, and in the end, I use it with wireless). I have a page on setting up scanning and printing through the command line at https://srobb.net/cliscanprint.html
The only thing I found was that to have it scan over the network, I had to allow mdns in the firewall. sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service mdns --permanent
A link to the printer on the Brother site
Available at Amazon and BestBuy (and elsewhere I’m sure, but I got mine at BestBuy)
Hello-
You do not need ‘Gutenprint’ or the ‘bjnp’ backend -they were just part of my initial attempt to get the printer installed. What you need is the latest ‘linux driver’ for your printer which you get off your manufacturers website. Just run the RPM by ‘right click’ and running the software install option. I also gave my Windows computer a ‘Static IP’ so its shares could be consistently found- and then just shared the Windows printer. Just search Google for how to ‘give Windows a static IP’ - and ‘how to share your Windows printer’ to get those set up. There are ‘step by step’ on Youtube for these also.
I’ve not tested with Rocky9, but CentOS7, Debian 10, Debian 12 all work with my Brother MFC9340CDW. I have to beat up cups a little 'cos the default “driverless” ppd just results in rubbish being printed.
I think it also needed 32bit libraries to work properly.
For scanning, the Brother provided brscan programs work (both for computer initiated and for printer initiated scans).
I have not tested fax capabilities in the past decade, so I can’t say if they still work! Who uses fax these days
Yes from everything I’ve come across Brother and HP do have the best linux support.
On Brother site I came across this for a ‘helper program’ for installation:
OK, it’s good to have the solution in the forum post in case anyone is looking in future. According to the cups people, you don’t need drivers anymore. Have you tried the IPP option?
