surprisingly okay laser printer on special at Canada Computers: Brother DCP-L2550DW
It's rather sad that Linux users are back to scratching around to find compatible printers. For a few years, almost everything just worked. Now we're deeply into the Gillette model of sales: make money on consumables, but sell the main hardware cheap. It's not helped that the Apple-owned CUPS printing system — though completely open — is absurdly complex and makes diagnosing print problems very hard. Our old Brother network laser printer having become mysteriously slow (first page times in the 10s of minutes) and producing horrible output, it was time for a new one. A little digging turned up this: https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=34_1170_454&item_id=119555 for $140. It's not marked as a special, but other vendors sell it for around $240. It's a full PCL/PostScript (well, BR-Script) network printer with a simple ADF scanner on top. Since it's an IPP printer, it can usually be auto-discovered on the network. With the right generic driver (cups-ipp-utils on Debian) it'll print properly on any architecture of Linux: my Raspberry Pis are perfectly happy with it. It's IPv6 aware too, if that matters to you. The product page gives you access to "full featured" Linux drivers, including one for the scanner: https://support.brother.com/g/b/producttop.aspx?c=ca&lang=en&prod=dcpl2550dw_us Unfortunately, these drivers are x86 only (and one's not even x86_64). The scanner driver is *utterly* dismal. While I was quite pleased it could scan directly (via a brscan system service) over wireless to my computer, all it could do is dump the first page as a very low resolution Legal-sized B&W scan to a PNM file in ~/brscan. Worse still, the file and folder were owned by root. Everything but the first page in the ADF is ignored (but ejected from the ADF, dammit). Thankfully, the processes are managed through shell scripts stored in /opt. These scripts are appalling badly written. There's a script for each of the scanner's Scan to Image/Document/Email/OCR functions, but most of them don't work as shipped. The OCR one has a whole section of might-have-worked-once code commented out and doesn't seem to generate any output at all. Despite their flimsy feel, Brother printers are fairly robust. Nait Singh* warns that some of the newer (cheaper) Brother printers use different control engines even in the same printer model, and that very new Brother printers have 'chipped' printer cartridges that need a little work to circumvent. Nait's been refurbishing, refilling and selling printers for years and is quite careful to suggest the lowest TCO printer to buyers. He still recommends Brother laser printers over anything else. HP he describes as dead to him: their support, quality and compatibility has plummeted. Yes, this printer gets a "surprisingly okay" rating from me, as printers these days mostly seem to have difficulty doing what they should. cheers, Stewart *: Nait owns Cartridge Ink Plus at Kennedy & Progress (1-7 Progress Ave, Scarborough, ON, M1P 5A3 — https://www.cartridgeinkplus.com). The store might appear a little eccentric, but Nait just wants you to have a reliable printer at a good price. He didn't seem remotely bothered that I'd buy a printer for less from Canada Computers rather than spend more at his place.
TL;DR: lots of minutiae about buying and using Brother printers. | From: Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> I agree that Brother laser printers seem to work pretty well. Almost all the laser printers I've bought have been brothers. It's hard to tease out information that matters to linux users. Here's what I think that I know. Do check before making a purchase. - Brother does provide linux drivers, but they are binary. They've worked for me for many years, but I don't like binary drivers. For one thing, they only work on x86 and x86-64. - Some printers have BrotherScript (PostScript emulation) and PCL (HP's language). Some only support PCL. Both languages are well supported by open source drivers. It might be possible that PPD tweaks would be a good idea -- I don't know. - a few printers (and I don't know how to tell which) require proprietary drivers. - in the all-in-one devices, MFC- models seem to use BrotherScript and the DCP ones only support PCL. - the scanners have no open-source drivers. The closed-source driver that I use seems to work well. I have made bug reports (years ago). The response wasn't clear. - the device model name's suffix letters are useful clues: D: Duplex printing (i.e. will print double-sided) N: ethernet (as well as USB) W: WiFi (and often ethernet) (as well as USB) - the last two digits seem to increase as features (and price) increase. - it's often hard to figure out if the scanner's ADF supports double-sided scanning. My MFC-L2720DW does not. The marketing material rarely mentions this. I've sometimes seen "yes" in specs but rarely seen "no". - I think that some models have "chipped" toner cartridges, forcing you to buy expensive Brother replacements. Know that before you buy the printer. - multifunction devices tend to have lower capacity toners and thus cost more per page. - over a longer term, you need to replace the "drum" too. I've never been able to reliably distinguish out-of-toner behaviour from worn-out drum behaviour. Don't believe the warning lights -- they go off prematurely. - I tend to buy "refurbished" printers from Brother itself. The one's I've gotten don't seem used at all. Perhaps they were store returns or obsolete models. When you sign up to the mailing list, you probably get a coupon to spend at the site: <https://www.brother.ca/en/good-as-new-bmg/c/refurbs-bmg?facetValueFilter=tenant~ProductStatus:active,tenant~ProductStatus:transition> (That's an odd URL.) - I don't know how to tweak a printer descriptor file (PPD) for the Brother printers, but it should be possible. I'm not sure if it matters. | A little digging turned up this: | | https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=34_1170_454&item_id=119555 | | for $140. It's not marked as a special, but other vendors sell it for | around $240. Brother currently sells the refurb for $109.99, minus any coupon you might get for signing up to the mailing list. <https://www.brother.ca/en/p/RDCPL2550DW> | It's a full PCL/PostScript (well, BR-Script) network printer with a | simple ADF scanner on top. The "Product Overview" says: 50-sheet capacity duplex automatic document feeder but the specifications say: Duplex Scanning: No Stewart: which is correct? On my MFC, the ADF is on a hinge, and a flatbed scanner lives underneath it. Is that true of the DCP-L2550DW? The specs don't say. | The scanner driver is *utterly* dismal. While I was quite pleased it | could scan directly (via a brscan system service) over wireless to my | computer, all it could do is dump the first page as a very low | resolution Legal-sized B&W scan to a PNM file in ~/brscan. Worse still, | the file and folder were owned by root. Everything but the first page in | the ADF is ignored (but ejected from the ADF, dammit). Thankfully, the | processes are managed through shell scripts stored in /opt. These | scripts are appalling badly written. There's a script for each of the | scanner's Scan to Image/Document/Email/OCR functions, but most of them | don't work as shipped. The OCR one has a whole section of | might-have-worked-once code commented out and doesn't seem to generate | any output at all. I only use the scanner from one computer, by ethernet, with fixed IP addresses. I have few troubles with any scanning software, using the proprietary SANE driver. There are a few different proprietary drives, based on the printer model (so my printer's driver might differ from Stewart's). I mostly use SimpleScan because it's simple. There is a (mildly awkward) choice of using ADF or the flatbed. The few ways I use it work fine. It even has a procedure that makes up for non-duplex ADF: - scan all front pages from ADF - scan all back pages from ADF - press Reorder Pages: Combine sides (Reverse)
On Mon, May 06, 2019 at 10:38:18AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
I agree that Brother laser printers seem to work pretty well. Almost all the laser printers I've bought have been brothers.
I still hold a grudge against their laser printers from 20 years ago. I dealt with one that claimed LJ III compatible, but the margins it had were wider than the LJ III so pages were cut off if you used the driver it claimed you could use. That is NOT compatibility. So as a result in my mind brother equals junk. :) The BJC10 is the cause of me having the same opinion of all Canon inkjets. Probably neither is entirely fair. -- Len Sorensen
On 2019-05-06 11:25 a.m., Lennart Sorensen via talk wrote:
Probably neither is entirely fair.
I think it's fair to say that it may be an unfair opinion. LJ III compatible means "talks PCL 5". Brother printers do feel somewhat light duty, but ours have held up pretty well. And yes, to answer Hugh, the DCP-L2550DW does have a duplex scanner after all. The ADF lifts up to reveal a glass bed. cheers, Stewart
On Mon, May 06, 2019 at 02:44:57PM -0400, Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:
I think it's fair to say that it may be an unfair opinion. LJ III compatible means "talks PCL 5". Brother printers do feel somewhat light duty, but ours have held up pretty well.
Well they could have said PCL 5 compatible in the documentation, but they explicitly said LJ III compatible. -- Len Sorensen
I've been using Brother lasers for many years and like them a lot - they've seen me through writing two books, among other things. My current machine is a few-years-old MFC-9125CN colour 'laser' multifunction, and it supports scan-to-email (via a built-in SMTP send client) or scanning to a network share. Both of those are gloriously driver-free distro-agnostic scanning solutions :-) Doesn't work for all use-cases, but serves me well for documents, receipts, and the occasional photo. -Chris On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 11:25 AM Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On Mon, May 06, 2019 at 10:38:18AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
I agree that Brother laser printers seem to work pretty well. Almost all the laser printers I've bought have been brothers.
I still hold a grudge against their laser printers from 20 years ago. I dealt with one that claimed LJ III compatible, but the margins it had were wider than the LJ III so pages were cut off if you used the driver it claimed you could use. That is NOT compatibility.
So as a result in my mind brother equals junk. :)
The BJC10 is the cause of me having the same opinion of all Canon inkjets.
Probably neither is entirely fair.
-- Len Sorensen --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
| From: Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | I still hold a grudge against their laser printers from 20 years ago. | I dealt with one that claimed LJ III compatible, but the margins it had | were wider than the LJ III so pages were cut off if you used the driver | it claimed you could use. That is NOT compatibility. It is what passes for compatability. Compatability at the level you want almost requires using the same laser engine. And the same Font licenses. That's why is wonder about PPD files. They most likely fix this kind of problem (for CUPS). Unfortunately, according to Stewart, PPD files have become complicated and opaque.
While we're on the subject of printers in general and Brother printers in particular -- why is it that you can get a cheap duplex BW laser printer, and a (fairly) cheap colour laser printer, but duplex+colour=$astronomical ? -Chris On Tue, May 7, 2019 at 1:35 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
| From: Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
| I still hold a grudge against their laser printers from 20 years ago. | I dealt with one that claimed LJ III compatible, but the margins it had | were wider than the LJ III so pages were cut off if you used the driver | it claimed you could use. That is NOT compatibility.
It is what passes for compatability. Compatability at the level you want almost requires using the same laser engine. And the same Font licenses.
That's why is wonder about PPD files. They most likely fix this kind of problem (for CUPS).
Unfortunately, according to Stewart, PPD files have become complicated and opaque. --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
participants (4)
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Chris Tyler -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
lsorense＠csclub.uwaterloo.ca -
Stewart C. Russell