Hacker News Reader

Comment by juliangmp | Hacker News Reader

The printer stack as a whole is a legacy mess.. I have an easier time getting a 3D printer to work than any inkjet machine

View on HN

Maybe I got lucky, but in 2017 I bought a Brother DCP-L2520DW laser printer. No matter what OS, computer or network I connect it to, it seems to just work for everyone involved, always, and I don't think I've had a single issue with it since I got it nor did anything at all to set it up, basically installed CUPS on my desktop to get it to work and for Windows/macOS it just works.

Not affiliated, just happy user, at least some companies seem to be able to deal with it, regardless if it's open source (my stack) or not (my wife's Apple-stack).

There has been a strong push by OS makers to unify and simplify printer interfaces to the point that they should not require special drivers.

But this process is still ongoing and lazy hardware vendors will continue to be lazy in their switch, if they have the option.

What’s that “switch” you’re referring to?

"IPP Everywhere" [1][2]

[1]: https://wiki.debian.org/CUPSIPPEverywhere

[2]: https://www.pwg.org/ipp/everywhere.html

IPP Everywhere linked in the other comment, but there's also Mopria certified printers (https://mopria.org/certified-products). Which use WPP drivers on Windows.

I've bought almost the same model but a few years later. I also enjoy how effortless is connecting this printer to Linux. I have to install brlaser driver manually though.

But I did some research before buying (including here on HN) and Brother printers were praised for being reliable and having no problems with Linux drivers.

Brother lasers are the cheat mode for cheap quality prints with no BS.

Don't speak too quickly: https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/printers/brother-ac...

Luckily the old ones last forever, so it won't be a problem for another 20 years lol.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com