[EdLUG] Linux Compatible Printer & Screenshare App

Tue Nov 10 10:59:05 UTC 2020

For scanning, if you only do small amounts then I find phone apps are
more convenient than a multifunction printer/scanner. Adobe Scan is
the best I've tried: free, produces PDFs with good OCR, and has an
automatic shutter feature that means you don't have to tap/nudge the
phone just as it's taking the picture.

On Tue, 10 Nov 2020 at 09:52, Thomas Kluyver <thomas at kluyver.me.uk> wrote:
>
> I'll add a couple of caveats to what everyone else is saying, based on a guess that you're not wanting to print a lot:
>
> Printing on both sides is certainly a good idea, but if you print as little as I do, it's easy enough to do this manually (print the odd pages, put them back in the printer, print the even pages), especially if it's easy to see how paper goes through it. I suspect that duplex units will be part of bigger, more expensive printers, so I wouldn't prioritise this if I was getting a new printer.
> Likewise, if you're not printing often, the most important feature is how well it prints after a few weeks sitting still on a shelf. If you have to do things like nozzle cleaning and head alignment every time you use it, the theoretical cost per page doesn't mean much. But there's probably no good way to know this in advance.
> I just checked on John Lewis, and the cheapest printers incorporating a scanner in each category are: colour inkjet £40, black & white laser £150, colour laser £230. I'm not saying the cheapest is what you want, but even with official cartridges it's could be years before the up-front cost of a laser pays off.
>
> We currently have an Epson XP-325. That model is no longer sold, but it's the kind of thing that's probably £60-80 new. I'd give it 3/5 - it wasn't plug & play on Linux, but Epson do provide a Linux driver, and since I installed that it has worked pretty well, both for printing and scanning. It didn't refuse to use unofficial cartridges, but we had a fair number of problems with blurry/streaky prints which seemed to go away when we put Epson branded cartridges in. It works over wifi, and I like that more than I thought I would - the printer can live out of the way, and I don't have to move the printer or my laptop to print something.
>
> Thomas
>
> On Mon, 9 Nov 2020, at 21:49, Roy wrote:
>
> Team
>
> I bought a HP all in one in March. My old 2003 vintage HP 2500Ln started putting toner on the floor and the inside was a mess. It only did single sided too.
>
> I have an HP Colour Laserjet Pro MFP M479fdw. Its got hot and cold running everything.
>
> Printing just works. If the ethernet cable is connected, it will not connect to wifi network but wifi direct still works. I like that as my wifi network contains all my untrusted devices, so its not a bridge across my network segments.
>
> Scanning under Linux is a bit odd. You need to supply it with a USB memory stick. It scans to PDF to the memory stick, which you can either take away, or download from its web server.  Turning on the web server is buried in the setup and not intuitive. It does not use the SANE network scanner driver.
>
> The printer has a duplex unit as standard, as does the scanner ADF.
>
> I've not tested the fax as its nowhere near a phone point. Does anyone else have a fax these days?
>
> It will print directly from a USB stick too. That and Bluetooth connectivity are untested.
>
> I didn't particularly want this model but HP had a money back offer on it, which means it cost me less that a set of replacement HP toners and a lot less that the one I thought about.
>
> I didn't sign up to HPs ink for life, I don't print enough to make it worth while. When the toners are empty, if I can get another deal along the same lines, I'll just replace it, my last printer lasted me 17 years and was on its second set of toners and original image drum.
>
> I've only tested wired network printing and scanning from Gentoo using Balsa, Firefox and LibreOffice.
>
> Android 9 Wifi Direct printing works without HPs intrusive app from the Play Store. That should be avoided.
>
> Regards,
>
> Roy Bamford.
>
>
> On 09/11/2020 20:52, Tai Kedzierski wrote:
>
> I'm somewhat interested in the answers to this thread actually...
>
> ---> Mentioning specific models and degrees of success is worthwhile.
>
> I have an old Brother printer, laserjet, and in the 10 years I've had it I have only needed to change the toner once... last year. I don't do all that much printing, mind you.
> It's a DCP7010 model, which I can confirm works with Linux out of the box for printing. Scanning has been hit-and-miss with the various scanning apps, I'm pretty sure it worked once on one distro, but has not worked since...
>
> I second the recommendation to choose, if possible, a model that does two-sided printing, just for the principle of paper economy...
>
>
> I remember battling with a Lexmark printer once for a customer, and after 3hours of would-be-solutions and non-starters, including driver sources and compiling, I had to announce it as a no-go and that the customer needed to buy a new printer. I hated having to say that, and curse Lexmark to this day. That said, I know there are Lexmark drivers for Linux for other models.
>
> 40 years of home printing, and the PC still "can't find" the sodding thing that's right next to it on a USB line. One dreams of the halcyon days of sending PostScript over a serial port. (I used to tech support a printing solution at Adobe and learned a little about this ; the old reliable serial feed was a fantastic idea - throw some PCL or PS at it and away you went. You could even filter the stuff through `sed` if you were daring enough...)
>
>
> ===
> Tai Kedzierski
>
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>
> On Mon, 9 Nov 2020 at 20:26, Magnus Hagdorn <magnus.hagdorn at marsupium.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Marion,
> I've recently upgraded my printer to a networked HP colour laser
> printer. I am very happy with it. I plugged it into the network and
> that was that.
>
> I would look into a laser printer as they tend to be cheaper to run and
> you don't need to worry about looking after the inks. Always look at
> the per page costs. The other thing I would insist on these days is a
> duplex unit, ie double sided printing.
>
> Cheers
> magnus
>
> On Mon, 2020-11-09 at 18:14 +0000, emailontheweb wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I'm looking for a printer-scanner that is compatible with Linux
> > Mint.Nothing too fancy ,mainly for printing black and white without
> > eating up ink like crazy...
> > How do you know before buying a printer if it will be Linux
> > compatible ?
> >
> > Also if anyone knows of/can recommend
> > a good online cartridge refill store, that would be helpful.
> >
> > Does anyone know of/can recommend an Android app that is privacy
> > focused for screensharing within an app?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Marion
>
>
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