Want to buy a new printer - what (brand?) works best with Ubuntu?

[equi000]

Hi,

after some struggling I managed to get my old Canon Inkjet printer work quite well with Ubuntu. But now it more or less quit working (not even a new printer head solved the „stripes“ problem). When I installed it several months ago I often read that Canon is a brand that does not very well support Ubuntu (no drivers available). In fact Gutenprint helped in this case.

Are there brands that can be especially recommended for the use with Ubuntu?

I‘m not sure if I will by a color inkjet again or a color laser this time. Probably it should also have a scanner build in. It should be mid priced, not really cheap.

Maybe there is a list of printers available that are supported well?

Thanks for any hints!

[brian_p]

Maybe there is a list of printers available that are supported well?

Thanks for any hints!

All modern printers are supported by Ubuntu.

https://wiki.debian.org/CUPSDriverlessPrinting

[mastablasta]

HP are usually well supported.

list of supported printers is here:
https://www.openprinting.org/printers

[Autodave]

HP. I have yet to have any problem with any HP printer.

[mIk3_08]

Brother printer/scanner for me with wifi network connection.
This is not to advertise but just want to share that I have this device which I use for many years now with my Ubuntu System. So far I haven't experience any problem with it with my Ubuntu System.
I use to run this device via wifi network with some network IP tweak and it was very friendly so far.
The scanner works with the Simple Scan application of Ubuntu and Xsane.

[equi000]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I‘ll see what‘s available at the moment. Seems many types are sold out due to COVID and working at home at the moment.

In fact I can remember my time at the university in the 90th: HP with postscript always worked best on our UNIX systems...

[equi000]

Ok, I did some checks. In case the needed support would not be pre-installed in Ubuntu: Indeed Brother delivers CUPS debian support (which should work for Ubuntu) and HP delivers its own printing system on their support download pages. Both seem the best options and both companies seem to „care“ about Linux customers.

Well, Brother has cheaper toner costs and higher print/scan resolution at the same price. Maybe I go with that...

[mastablasta]

Brother are also a very good choice. we use it at work.

[pushbike06]

The first consideration: How many print jobs/pages are you likely to do in say a year?
Second consideration: How much are you prepared to pay per print page?
Third consideration: This is related to the first consideration, how much "effort" are you prepared to expend in doing the print job?
Fourth consideration: How urgent are the print jobs likely to be.
Fifth consideration: Do you really need to print the job to hard copy?

For the second consideration, the costs include the printer capital cost, consumables cost (paper, ink), convenience cost (travel to printer location) more about this later.

Printer manufacturers market their printers at the lowest price possible, they are actually marketing consumables the ink being the most likely. Then for commercial use, the paper and a mandatory service contract.
For example it is common to find a perfectly capable printer at a price of say $100. That printer will have a unique printer ink cartridge that costs say $50 to replace. This cost has been a long term grievance of printer users and with the fall off in demand for the ink cartridge system, some manufacturers are offering bulk ink / reservoir style ink systems.

An alternative to home printing is to utilise your local public library. No printer maintenance upkeep, high quality and at a page cost of < $0.50. That is where the third and fourth considerations come into play.

The fifth consideration is relating to the wide acceptance of digital documents and storage.

[SeijiSensei]

I have a Brother HL-3710CDW which has wifi. I never use it. I just connected the printer to my local network with an Ethernet cable and gave it a static IP address. Every device can print to it whether wired or wireless. On my Android phone I use the Brother app.