Colour MFD recommendations?

[Paul Gear]

Hi folks,

Can anyone recommend a cheap-ish, reliable colour MFD which works with Ubuntu?  We've been using an HP OfficeJet Pro L7300 and have had quite a few reliability problems on the printing side, and it's more than the cost of new printer to fix them.

Essential functions:

• Reliability
• Linux & Windows compatible
  
• Scanning
• Photo & document printing

Desirable:

• Network

Don't care:

• Fax

Thanks in advance,
Paul

[Jared Norris]

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I was going to suggest something from the HP range and just suggest
you hit your price point as best as you can but it seems that's
probably what you did to get that the L7300. I've had a HP PSC2610 for
years and it's never missed a beat but it's only home user quality. HP
were the only brand I'd ever heard consistently good things about so
let us know how your search goes if you don't mind.

No one else has any suggestions?

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Jared Norris JP(Qual) BBehSc(Psych)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JaredNorris

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[Gregory Storer]

I have a HP Photosmart C4380, it's wireless. Was very cheap and works a
treat. It does scanning and printing. No fax. It works in xsane and I
have had no trouble in getting it set up under Ubuntu.

[Chris Robinson]

Speaking as a photographer interested in photo printing technology and longevity of papers and inks, Canon make technically great products but their software support for Linux is borderline at best.  Most people seem to recommend HP and for this reason I think I'll go upmarket HP in the future.  Having said that, if there's a Canon printer that is recommend for installation in Ubuntu/Linux then it's good alternative.

The only brand name I'd avoid aggressively is Kodak: dubious technology (especially inks) and zero Linux support - this from their support site:

================8<-------------------------------

Q. Can I use my all-in-one printer the with LINUX Operating System?

A. All-in-one printers do not support LINUX OS at this time. The all-in-one printers are designed to work with WINDOWS XP, WINDOWS VISTA, and WINDOWS 7 Operating Systems and with MAC OS 10.4.8 or higher.

================8<-------------------------------

Apart from this, Kodak have just filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the states.  Eeek!

I think the best thing to do would be to Google current printers you may be interested in on Linux forums and sites, and see what people are saying about specific current models.  Check to see if there are driver modules and reports of people using them successfully.  Unfortunately this list (Ubuntu AU) has too few active posters to really get a representative sample regarding a fairly specialised topic like this (how many of us have just bought a printer?).

If anyone has any recommendations though, don't let my last comments put you off...

Chris

---

From: Jared Norris <jrno...@gmail.com>
To: Paul Gear <pa...@libertysys.com.au>
Cc: Ubuntu AU List <ubun...@lists.ubuntu.com>
Sent: Sunday, 5 February 2012 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: Colour MFD recommendations?

[Andre Mangan]

The HP C5280 MFD I had was cheap and worked very well for just over a year and then spewed black ink on the wall as it died. 

Replaced with an Epson Artisan 725.  Epson support Linux via its Avahy site and take pride in doing so.  Thoroughly recommended.  Great for photo printing - in fact it does everything and more.

Another HP printer, not MFD, has been giving good service for over ten years.

Canon?  Poor Linux support.  Not recommended.  Same with Kodak.  Same with Lexmark.  Same with Dell (rebranded Lexmark).

Andre

.

[Paul Gear]

On 06/02/12 08:11, Andre Mangan wrote:

The HP C5280 MFD I had was cheap and worked very well for just over a year and then spewed black ink on the wall as it died. 

Replaced with an Epson Artisan 725.  Epson support Linux via its Avahy site and take pride in doing so.  Thoroughly recommended.  Great for photo printing - in fact it does everything and more.

Another HP printer, not MFD, has been giving good service for over ten years.

Canon?  Poor Linux support.  Not recommended.  Same with Kodak.  Same with Lexmark.  Same with Dell (rebranded Lexmark).

FWIW, we went with an HP OfficeJet 4500 - $84 from Harvey Norman.  It has a really cheap and nasty embedded JetDirect device (which supports only SNMPv1), but that's still a lot more convenient than having to have a PC turned on in order to make it function.

Paul

[Boden Matthews]

I use a HP PhotoSmart C310, haven't tested with Linux, but it has WiFi networking plus ePrint, so if it doesn't work with Linux you can just set it up to email docs to it and it will print them.

Regards,

Boden Matthews,

http://bodenm.wordpress.com

[Boden Matthews]

After a quick Googling I found that HP has an official Linux driver (HPLIP). The list of supported printers is at http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/release_notes.html and install instructions are at http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/install/install/index.html

Regards,

Boden Matthews,

http://bodenm.wordpress.com