I’ve been using Linux exclusively since ~2010 and moved my mum over back when XP got canned. Printers always have been and still are the bane of my existence. From what I know from other people working in IT printers are always bad, however of course the driver support situation in Linux is so much worse. My mum used to have a Samsung mfp that would print in Linux (most of the time) but I could not for the life of me figure out how to get it to scan reliably. In the end I’ve set her up with a dual boot with a simple “click here to switch to Windows” button so she could scan in there (saving the scans to a NAS)
From my experience printers mostly either work or don’t work in Linux. If you are looking for a new printer I’ve only had food experiences with Brother. If you already have a printer and it’s not working right I can recommend sxouring through forums for that one wisdom of the ancients that can help (and possibly sacrificing a goat)
I bow also have a Canon printer (it was a gift) and with the official Linux drivers it worked for years. Recently it just wouldn’t print from Linux anymore till I switched the drivers to the generic “Guteprint” now it’s printing fine again …
Tl;dr: printers are evil and Linux drivers are sometimes making them worse
Let me tell you:
I’ve been using Linux exclusively since ~2010 and moved my mum over back when XP got canned. Printers always have been and still are the bane of my existence. From what I know from other people working in IT printers are always bad, however of course the driver support situation in Linux is so much worse. My mum used to have a Samsung mfp that would print in Linux (most of the time) but I could not for the life of me figure out how to get it to scan reliably. In the end I’ve set her up with a dual boot with a simple “click here to switch to Windows” button so she could scan in there (saving the scans to a NAS)
From my experience printers mostly either work or don’t work in Linux. If you are looking for a new printer I’ve only had food experiences with Brother. If you already have a printer and it’s not working right I can recommend sxouring through forums for that one wisdom of the ancients that can help (and possibly sacrificing a goat)
I bow also have a Canon printer (it was a gift) and with the official Linux drivers it worked for years. Recently it just wouldn’t print from Linux anymore till I switched the drivers to the generic “Guteprint” now it’s printing fine again …
Tl;dr: printers are evil and Linux drivers are sometimes making them worse