[TriLUG] Best printer?

[Peter Neilson]

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 13:26:43 -0400, Justis Peters  
<justis.peters at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 8:33 AM, Peter Neilson <neilson at windstream.net>  
> wrote:
>>
>> A couple of years ago I bought an HP 6500 "all-in-one" to replace an  
>> aging Canon 4400. I've been less than pleased. Replacing an ink  
>> cartridge generally takes one to two hours as the machine complains,  
>> "Ink cartridge missing or damaged" when the cartridge is actually brand  
>> new and properly inserted. It is not possible (for instance) to print  
>> in b&w if a color cartridge isn't right, or even to do scanning.  
>> Eventually it magically starts working correctly.
>>
>> Right now all the cartridges are in place correctly, but the machine  
>> fails to print black ink. My computer room is on the second floor of my  
>> house, and the nearby window is tempting me to test the 6500's  
>> abilities in aviation.
>>
>> The "usual resources" thus far have provided me with no definitive  
>> answers of wireless printers appropriate for Ubuntu 12.10 or even for  
>> other Linux systems. Horror stories are available for every model, as  
>> far as I can see.
>>
>> Does anyone have any solid recommendations? I'd like print/scan/copy.  
>> Don't need fax. I fully expect the cost of buying the thing to be much  
>> like owning a horse, where the initial cost is always swamped by the  
>> cost of the ink or horse feed.
>
> I bought a Brother MFCJ425W (for approximately $100) in October 2012
> and have been very pleased with it so far. It was a snap to setup in
> Ubuntu and the replacement cartridges are comparatively cheap. Brother
> is one of the only "big brands" that turns a blind eye to the
> third-party providers of ink cartridges. Read the reviews on the ink,
> to make sure you don't end up with a mess on your hands (literally),
> but it's definitely nice to buy ink for a reasonable price again.
>
> Kind regards,
> Justis

Solved my own problem, I hope.

Bought a last-one Brother HL-3075CW laser printer at Office Max for about  
$200, plus four spare genuine toner carts just in case they stop making  
them or something. It comes with on 64 MB of mem, and I asked at Intrex if  
they had the 512 MB SO-DIMM add-on mem for it, but it's already obsolete,  
so I got that for about $80 from Crucial.

Seems to run Linux internally, but I've not worked at hacking into it yet.  
The "admin" interface is a very restrictive shell that appears to have no  
escapes to a bash.

The machine itself draws a hefty spike of line power on startup from sleep  
mode, almost as if it were a fridge compressor. It makes a nearby APC UPS  
for one of my computers go "beep-beep" briefly! I'm worrying that I have  
maybe some bad house wiring. Already discovered the clothes dryer outlet  
was wired badly, loose connections that would have set the house on fire  
eventually. As A. P. Ershov said, "Having found one [bug] look for others  
in the same place."