Not really sure if this is the right section to post…moderators please move this if not and apologiesfor inconvenience caused. I am trying to get a new printer but this is the first time I will be setting it up using a linux system and in my case, opensuse distro. I tend to be favoring Canon until I read in some random internet posts their compatibility/support with linux is not exactly the best. I try to stay away from HP, though for no specific reason. However, HP seems to work best apart from the odd issue here and there…
However, from a compatibility point of view, is Canon to be avoided? Would I be better off with Brother or HP?
From my personal experience, the first thing to do is to check if the printer manufacturer explicitly mentions that the printer model supports Linux – they often have a “Penguin” icon somewhere on the web page related to the specific printer model …
Simply select “List by Manufacturer”, choose the manufacturer and then “Show All” – lists of printer models of class “Perfectly” (3 Penguins), class “Mostly” (2 Penguins), class “Partially” (1 Penguin) and class “Paperweight” (no entry for Penguins) are shown.
I have printers of all three brands and use all three with openSUSE, however it’s not always simple.
HP seems to be the most popular, and it’s relatively easy to set up using HPLIP if one takes time to RTFM. Unfortunately I live in a location where power is an issue… frequent voltage fluctuations and outages, and the HP’s circuit boards seem to fail after too many of those events.
Brother has excellent support for linux, 'though the documentation is sometimes hard to find on their website. I’ve found their printers to be very reliable, almost “bullet proof”, and they’re now my first choice.
I do have one Canon photo printer that’s a must have for me, however Canon simply does not support Linux. Oddly one can find links to Linux drivers on their support pages, but following the links always gets me to a page that just says that Linux is not supported. For a long time I’ve had to use my beloved Pixma Pro-100 with Windows running in a VM. It’s tedious, but it works. A better alternative (though philosophically painful) is to use the closed source “Turbo Print Linux”. The cost is modest, and the software is super.
I bought a Canon printer once. Never again Canon anything. Though I have used HP, other than repair parts I’ve never bought HP anything, and hope I never need to. Since it absorbed Compaq, it’s apparently become too big a company to expect consistent quality from. My two newest printers are Brother. Brother has wider printer language support, as long as you don’t pick its cheapest models, which may be important for some legacy apps. It’s why I picked Brother over Epson, which has wide language support, but no laser models I could find.