Best printer makes (manufacturers) for FreeBSD

Valeri Galtsev galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu
Sat Jul 15 18:23:58 UTC 2017


Dear All,

Recent discussion about replacing old printer prompted me to start this
thread. Basically, which makes (or manufacturers) do you use on your
FreeBSD boxes? What would you recommend to watch for and avoid when
choosing the printer. (I personally would prefer one manufacturer not even
mentioned: Xerox. They went bad several years ago, and are banned wherever
I have a voice to affect the choice... So if you tell good story about
Xerox I definitely will reply with my bad one - enough for having my
attitude).

In one of recent threads two manufacturers were mentioned: Brother and HP
(Hewlett Packard). What prompted me to start this is suggestions that for
some model of Brother printer you need to install Linux support and use
Linux diver.

In the Department I support I use HP printers (mostly high end like Color
LaserJet CP4020-CP4520; Color LaserJet 4650, but have one low end LaserJet
ColorPro 400 m451). I must confess as Linux refugee, I am not total
refugee yet, so my setup is probably only partly relevant. Namely, all
print jobs go to printers through CUPS print server, the last is still on
Linux - hadn't chance to migrate it to FreeBSD. However, when I set up
printing on FreeBSD, the only things I have to do is: install CUPS, drop
wherever CUPS keeps printer drivers a bunch of .ppd files (you can
download these at linuxprinting.org site, basically PPD is PostScript
Printer Description file, and these can be extracted from postscript
printer driver manufacturer supplies, and it doesn't matter which  system
the driver is designed for). After that is done I set up printer on
FreeBSD as you usually do in CUPS, I choose postscript driver (and if PPD
for the printer is added, your printer will be in the list), and point to
my print server and queue. Theoretically, I can point to printer directly
(only my printers refuse connection from all but print server), so I'm
sure even if I didn't have CUPS based print server running on Linux
configuring printers on FreeBSD boxes would be as simple as I described.

I would like to hear about other good printer manufacturers, especially
cases then you set up printer as hassle-less as HP postscript printers are
for me - just curious what is good out there and what is not.

Thanks for all your replies!

Valeri

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
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