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.

  • @SteveTech@programming.dev
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    52 years ago

    I don’t know about the newest models, but I’ve had a pretty good experience with Brother printers, CUPS works fine, and they do release their own driver if you really want to use that.

    • HousePanther
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      52 years ago

      Even older Brothers bought used or refurbished are any excellent buy. They’re workhorses. Anybody concerned could just buy an Asurion warranty to go along with it.

  • HousePanther
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    22 years ago

    I don’t believe it’s all that difficult. Best idea is to check either brother’s website or the brlaser project on github. Here is something for you to read over.

  • HousePanther
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    2 years ago

    On another note, Brother laser printers are a really good buy. I have a used one that won’t die and still on its original fuser assembly. Something like this from Amazon should work gangbusters. Just get an Asurion warranty just in case but Brothers are workhorses. And indeed the MFC-L2690DW does work with Linux.

  • @JoeGTN1@lemm.ee
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    12 years ago

    I have an mfc 8900 that works flawlessly on Gentoo, it didn’t take too much futzing around to get both printing and scanning to work.

  • newIdentity
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    12 years ago

    Don’t. You’d probably be fine with Ubuntu or Fedora since they’re officially supported by Brother, but if you want to use something different, preper to struggle… a lot

    I tried to set up the DCP-7055W on Arch before just giving up and using my phone

  • Nioxic
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    32 years ago

    I have linux mint. It just instantly finds my brother printer on install, as soon as it connects to my network

    I have an L2340dw model. Nothing new and fancy. But its been rock solid for almost 10 years now. Cost me 100 euros.

  • superkret
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    22 years ago

    If you think about getting a specific model, go to Brother’s driver download page and check if there’s a Linux driver for it before you buy.

  • @synthllama@lemmy.sdf.org
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    122 years 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.

  • @DoWotJohn@lemmy.ml
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    72 years ago

    I have a Brother HL-L2395DW. My computer finds it on my wireless network immediately and it just works. I didn’t need to install anything.

  • walden
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    2 years ago

    I have a Brother HL-L2380DW that has been going strong for years. I love it. I can’t remember, but I think Linux Mint just picked it up no problem, and added it to the printers. In the past, I do remember installing drivers from Brother, but I’ve recently done some clean installs and I want to say I didn’t have to do all that. My memory is foggy, though.

  • RoboRay
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    52 years ago

    I have a 20 year old B&W Brother laser and a 2 year old color Brother laser… both just work automatically in Linux without needing any setup, configuration, or drivers.

  • @MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org
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    12 years ago

    As an outlier in skimming the other comments. Mine wasn’t great.

    I replaced it a few years ago, so I’m working from incomplete memory here, but here’s what I recall. I had a Brother laser printer. I don’t recall the model. The drivers were binary, only available for x86/x86_64, and only packaged in deb and rpm. Which certainly covers most cases, but it’s still limiting.

    I saw in another comment some only support GDI. I bet that was the case for me.

    I think a good takeaway from this isn’t to not buy Brother, but to check support for the model you’re looking at beforehand.

  • @philpo@feddit.de
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    32 years ago

    While the Linux integration wasn’t a huge deal for me I just wanted to add one point: Be aware of the fine dust situation laser printer create and why some people are having issues. For home use a inkjet is sometimes preferrable if one can’t position it right (as we often can’t at home)

    Sadly at least in the last test I read Brother was one of the worst offenders together with HP.

    (I still have one but keep it in my office away from the living areas)