this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
115 points (96.7% liked)

Open Source

31365 readers
139 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Both of my Brother laser printers are over 10 years old now and they have been working great. My mono laser printer has an open source driver. Unfortunately, there is no open source driver for my color laser printer, but there is no DRM either. The toner cartridges have a mechanical toner level reset if you want to refill them.

The newer Brother laser printers support driverless printing, so you don't have to worry about closed source drivers.

You are going to be stuck with closed source firmware unless you connect a teletype to your computer though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the info

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even teletypes have firmware.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The older teletypes are all electromechanical. There is no firmware, just lots of gears and cams.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Gears and cams, the firmest of ware.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Driverless printing? How does that work? Specially, how does your computer communicate with the printer?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Driverless printing uses IPP Everywhere or AirPrint. As long as the printer supports one of those protocols, the computer can use it without needing a driver for the printer.