this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
63 points (100.0% liked)

Linux

48061 readers
726 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

My partner and I are thinking about getting a Brother laser printer for home use in the near future. How difficult is it to get a newer model working in a Linux ecosystem? Are there any specific drivers we should look into installing, if a specific driver isn't available for the model we end up getting? Any advice for connecting it to our network?

EDIT: Thank you all for the feedback! It seems that generally you all have had decent experiences with Brother on Linux, depending on the distro, and that there are resources out there to help with any issues that might come up.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Brother laser printers are great. As long as you get one that supports Postscript (Brother calls this BR-Script), PCL5 or PCL6. You can see this under the "emulations" printing specs on a printer model page. PostScript and PCL both have fully open source implementations so you'll usually be able to just use built-in CUPS gutenprint or foomatic drivers. I also recommend ethernet (wired or wireless) and not usb.

Do not get one that only says "GDI" emulations which is Windows based and can be really painful to deal with.