# Recommendation for a Multifunction Printer?



## MasterOne (May 6, 2021)

I am looking for a multifunction printer that works flawlessly under FreeBSD, mainly for office use.

Desired features are:

LAN connectivity with embedded print server
Duplex printing with CUPS support
Duplex scanning with SANE support
Laser vs ink not decided yet
Color vs black & white not decided yet
This may be more about a general guideline concerning which manufacturer to look at, because as far as I could see,

HP seems to offer good support with print/hplip but likely is the biggest rip-off when it comes down to toner/ink.
Epson used to be good, and there is print/epson-inkjet-printer-escpr, but I could not find much more information.
Canon was always something to stay away from in the past, but I don't know how it's now with them.
Xerox, Kyocera and what else I don't know nothing about.
Any hints?


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## Menelkir (May 6, 2021)

I have an Epson L365 (not sure if it's still available, maybe there's compatible printers available). It's a multifunction printer with ecotank (the duration of those tanks are really amazing), works like a charm in all OS I've tried (macOS, linux, windows, freebsd, and probably more). It uses print/epson-inkjet-printer-escpr for printing and graphics/xsane (the last one I've only tested on linux, but it will probably work on freebsd too). It works via wifi or USB.


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## tuxador (May 6, 2021)

I am happy with my Canon isensys mf 635cx , connected by LAN and working with CUPS and the IPPEVERYWHERE generic driver.
It's really fast.
The only issue I am facing is that "Linux Libertine" my favourite font is not rendered correctly although it worked with the propietary driver UFIIRI , which I had to substitute with Adobe Garamond Pro.


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## MasterOne (May 6, 2021)

After more research I'm ready to compromise concerning the desired features. Since I actually want to get away from laser printing, I have settled on the idea to get an Epson EcoTank, but the problem is which one of the following two:

Epson EcoTank ET-M1120: Cheapest option for a pure monochrome printer, supported by print/epson-inkjet-printer-escpr, but lacking duplex printing and only has a small open paper tray for just 150 sheets. I'm not averse to forego the "MFP" part because I still have my good old Epson Perfection 1200U scanner doing it's job for the few required tasks (though of course two separate units consume twice the space).
Epson EcoTank ET-M2170_: _3-in1 unit with duplex printing, that does everything better than the ET-M1120 at only a slightly higher price (despite what the Epson website shows, it's much cheaper on Amazon), BUT requires the newer *epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2* driver package containing the PPD and a filter binary, and although the source package is available, there is no FreeBSD port (yet).
Of course the ET-M2170 has an overall better value, and I would already have ordered it, if I knew that it just works and the epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2 gets ported anytime soon.

That matter is really giving me headaches right now, because my old printer has just died and I really need a replacement as soon as possible, so I'll have to order one of the two by tomorrow. If I only knew...


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## MasterOne (May 7, 2021)

Very well, I have been in touch with the maintainer of print/epson-inkjet-printer-escpr, and he wrote that he will port the escpr2 driver if no one else does it. 

In that case a decision has been made and I will now place an order for the Epson EcoTank ET-M2170 as the value of that one really can't be beaten (considering the huge difference between the price in the Epson web store and on Amazon).

P.S. I have long thought about laser vs ink and color vs monochrome. Color has been out of the equation quite early on, because what do you really need it for if it's not a photo printer and only results in higher overall costs with likely only occasional use. The idea to get away from laser was coming from concerns about particulates, unnecessary waste and costs. For a short moment I was considering a HP Neverstop Laser, but even with that one the TCO are a lot higher then with such an Epson EcoTank. Monochrome ink printers may look like a niche market, but this is really something to consider and I'm going for it!


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## MasterOne (May 7, 2021)

Tatsuki Makino already did it: 

*Bug 255680 - New port: print/epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2 Epson Inkjet Printer Driver 2 (ESC/P-R)*

Since I'm not able to test it right away, maybe someone else with an escpr2-supported printer wants to give it a try?


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## fjdlr (May 7, 2021)

I using one Ink Jet HP Officejet Pro 8020 Series on LAN, driver :/print/hplip
Cups printer system: /print/cups/
and /graphics/xsane/
time for install : approximately 15 minutes
and open firewall cups and sane (tcp/udp)


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## MasterOne (May 7, 2021)

fjdlr said:


> I using one Ink Jet HP Officejet Pro 8020 Series


I really was considering a new HP printer because of the quite well support by print/hplip, but after having done enough research I have come to the conclusion that HP must be the worst when it comes down to actual printing costs. Only their Neverstop Laser and Smart Tank ink printers would have made any sense to me, but even then they have no chance against Epson with their EcoTank series (and I really wanted to get away from Laser printing for several important reasons).


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## fjdlr (May 7, 2021)

MasterOne said:


> I really was considering a new HP printer because of the quite well support by print/hplip, but after having done enough research I have come to the conclusion that HP must be the worst when it comes down to actual printing costs. Only their Neverstop Laser and Smart Tank ink printers would have made any sense to me, but even then they have no chance against Epson with their EcoTank series (and I really wanted to get away from Laser printing for several important reasons).


Yes, if you have a great need to print, ink jet is not a good choice.
for me, it is to print 5 or 10 pages per month and I do not take the HP contract trap for the supply of ink


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## Emrion (May 7, 2021)

I gave up inkjet printing since... Many years. You may think you make saving on the cost of inks, but, in fact, this isn't true if you consider the cleaning of the heads and breakdowns of an inkjet printer.

A black-and-white laser printer costs nearly nothing in ink.


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## scottro (May 7, 2021)

What I did for years was have a cheap HP inkjet for scanning and a cheap Brother B&W for printing. Eventually, my wife wanted to print something in color and as we hadn't printed on the inkjet in years, the heads were completely clogged. I gave it to a friend who likes playing with this stuff  and he was able to fix it. (I let him keep it, as I decided to go color MFC laser).
I wound up with a Samsung C460. I didn't want HP because of their absurd toner prices. The week I bought my printer, HP bought Samsung's printing section.  Sigh.  However, I'm still able to get generic toner cartridges that work at great prices. I think we may have had to replace toner twice in 6 years. Scanning was also easy, found the solution on the ArchLinux wiki, you can edit one of the /usr/local/etc/sane.d files (for xerox_mpf) to get scanning working. I believe former forum member phoenix also uses this printer.  

But I digress. One of the ultra cheap multifunction inkjets for scanning and a Brother B&W laser are a great combo. (You can, I have read, keep the inkjet's heads from clogging by running print test once a month).


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## meine (May 7, 2021)

I have a Canon Pixma MG5750, and although printing just works with print/gutenprint and scanning works good with graphics/xsane, I wouldn't recommend it.

Canon has multifunctional drivers for this printer for Linux (.deb and .rpm) and they work great. The lack of just one driver on FreeBSD to manage the AIO-printer isn't the problem, separate programs are just fine (and better UNIX).

On FreeBSD it is sometimes too much of a challenge to get things right with printing -- 'sometimes', because for no clear reason sometimes it works fine, other times it is a PITA. Colour, double sided work and sometimes not, especially no colour and not even plain black letters (and a full cartridge), which is rather basic. I suspect this is also due to changing firmware on the printer and a different pace of keeping your drivers up to that.

Such cases feel like Stevie Martin's experience...

[edited] _are_ like Stevies's vid.


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## MasterOne (May 7, 2021)

fjdlr said:


> Yes, if you have a great need to print, ink jet is not a good choice. for me, it is to print 5 or 10 pages per month and I do not take the HP contract trap for the supply of ink


I meant HP is not a good choice due to their ridiculous TCO, not that ink is not a good choice, as can be seen from the current Mono EcoTank Printer series from Epson.


Emrion said:


> I gave up inkjet printing since... Many years. You may think you make saving on the cost of inks, but, in fact, this isn't true if you consider the cleaning of the heads and breakdowns of an inkjet printer. A black-and-white laser printer costs nearly nothing in ink.


I guess you haven't seen Epson's Mono EcoTank Printer series yet:

*THINKING LASER? THINK AGAIN - EcoTank mono: high quality, fast, economical*

No ink cartridges and the original Epson refill bottle good for 6000 pages costs just 14.99 EUR (incl. VAT). No laser printer can beat that!


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## Emrion (May 7, 2021)

MasterOne said:


> I meant HP is not a good choice due to their ridiculous TCO, not that ink is not a good choice, as can be seen from the current Mono EcoTank Printer series from Epson.
> 
> I guess you haven't seen Epson's Mono EcoTank Printer series yet:
> 
> ...



I think it's one of the last effort for inkjet to remain in the non-professional market. I have no doubt that you eventually realize you've been fooled.


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## astyle (May 7, 2021)

I'd recommend a desktop laser printer from HP - there's a couple models around $100-150 from Amazon. I personally have a LaserJet P1102w. yeah, laser cartridges are a ripoff, but for my model, there are cheap substitutes available on Amazon... On FreeBSD's CUPS, it takes foo2zjs driver, which works. My only complaint - After nearly a decade in service, it runs hot when it has a lot to print within an hour. 

Stay away from ink and ink subscriptions, and go for laser.


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## ct85711 (May 7, 2021)

I know for most people, I still would recommend a laser printer over an EcoTank; especially if you don't print too often.  As with inkjets, EcoTanks still have the issue of the ink being a liquid; so will dry up just as much as an inkjet (though not as fast).  It may be good if you print semi-regularly; so the printer can keep the heads clean otherwise if you only print a couple pages a year it isn't any different than being more expensive.  Later on, I'll have to see about getting me a new printer; as my old Samsung ML2010 finally died.  It's well over 20+ years when I bought that printer; so it last well past it's life span.  I could have possibly replaced the rollers on it, and it would have lasted even longer.

The biggest thing laser has any other printer, is more of that you don't have to worry about the ink drying out (since it is already a powder to begin with); so you don't have an issue of leaving the printer sitting off to the side for a couple years without use and still work without any issues.


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## diizzy (May 7, 2021)

Pretty much anything that's not bottom of the barrel will do fine as PCL5/6 support is more or less always there.
I would look for Kyocera as their build quality is pretty good compared to many others and prices aren't that bad however due to COVID there's a general shortage of MFPs.


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## astyle (May 7, 2021)

ct85711 said:


> I know for most people, I still would recommend a laser printer over an EcoTank; especially if you don't print too often.  As with inkjets, EcoTanks still have the issue of the ink being a liquid; so will dry up just as much as an inkjet (though not as fast).  It may be good if you print semi-regularly; so the printer can keep the heads clean otherwise if you only print a couple pages a year it isn't any different than being more expensive.  Later on, I'll have to see about getting me a new printer; as my old Samsung ML2010 finally died.  It's well over 20+ years when I bought that printer; so it last well past it's life span.  I could have possibly replaced the rollers on it, and it would have lasted even longer.
> 
> The biggest thing laser has any other printer, is more of that you don't have to worry about the ink drying out (since it is already a powder to begin with); so you don't have an issue of leaving the printer sitting off to the side for a couple years without use and still work without any issues.


Samsung printers were never around that long - they only started appearing after 2005. I went through 2 of them in the span of 3 years before deciding to go with HP.


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## astyle (May 7, 2021)

diizzy said:


> Pretty much anything that's not bottom of the barrel will do fine as PCL5/6 support is more or less always there.
> I would look for Kyocera as their build quality is pretty good compared to many others and prices aren't that bad however due to COVID there's a general shortage of MFPs.


Depends on where you live... most MFP's are easily available in online shops.


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## diizzy (May 7, 2021)

astyle said:


> Depends on where you live... most MFP's are easily available in online shops.


Unless you live in US / Europe at least...


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## astyle (May 7, 2021)

I live in US, and Jeff Bezos is my personal online supplier for any MFP I would choose to buy.


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## MasterOne (May 8, 2021)

Well, we'll see, but the Epson EcoTank ET-M2170 was a really good deal (with 173,03 EUR excl. VAT less than half of those 420,16 EUR excl. VAT that Epson wants in their own online shop) and it already comes with 2 ink bottles good for up to 11.000 pages and 3 years warranty.

I don't expect having been fooled, their "last effort for inkjet" with tank instead of cartridge, monochrome instead of color (less likelihood for anything drying out because you always print black) and Heat-Free Technology really caught my eye. It's going to be in use as a daily office printer replacing a defective Brother laser printer.

I wanted to get away from laser printing because of the particulates, which I am really worried about (and I recognized the pollution despite having used an external filter unit at the air outlet).

I really don't know what the downside of this is supposed to be, because overall TCO is indeed less compared to any laser printer in that price and printing demand range. Just compare Epson's refill bottle with HP's Neverstop refill toner or even any 3rd party toner offer.

After having done extensive research for several days, that approach seemed to be the only one which made any sense. A return to anything with an ink or toner cartridge is pretty much out of question for me.


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## diizzy (May 8, 2021)

EcoTanks are cheap ~40-50EUR printers with a larger tank and garbage to be honest. You'll need to actively use it for it not to dry up (like within 2-3 weeks) and the overall quality of both the printer itself and prints are poor at best. Given the platform I'd also expect it be more or less software (driver) driven so that's going to be "fun" if you're not using Windows.


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## MasterOne (May 8, 2021)

diizzy said:


> EcoTanks are cheap ~40-50EUR printers with a larger tank and garbage to be honest. You'll need to actively use it for it not to dry up (like within 2-3 weeks) and the overall quality of both the printer itself and prints are poor at best. Given the platform I'd also expect it be more or less software (driver) driven so that's going to be "fun" if you're not using Windows.


They are certainly not cheap and garbage. Not sure about any previous generation, but the current one makes a really good impression. As said, I have done extensive research and only read goods things about them.

Sure thing, they are not of high end build quality, but also not inferior to any laser printer in the same price range. Their pigment ink prints by PrecisionCore print head with 400 nozzles are also supposed to be nearly as good if not equal to laser prints at pretty much the same speed with quicker start due to their heat-free technology (no heat-up time).

Of course any ink printer is destined to be used regularly, and that's what we are going to do as it will be put to good use as everyday office printer.

They are indeed software driven (GDI) but well supported by the escpr2 printer driver for CUPS, which just got ported to FreeBSD.

Overall I am confident that I made the right and economical decision, and I'm especially glad that I no longer will have a source of particulates in the vicinity of my office desk, which really was something of concern to me.


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## grahamperrin@ (May 8, 2021)

Side note: 245540 – [NEW PORT] graphics/sane-airscan: AirScan backend for SANE


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## diizzy (May 8, 2021)

MasterOne said:


> They are certainly not cheap and garbage. Not sure about any previous generation, but the current one makes a really good impression. As said, I have done extensive research and only read goods things about them.
> 
> Sure thing, they are not of high end build quality, but also not inferior to any laser printer in the same price range. Their pigment ink prints by PrecisionCore print head with 400 nozzles are also supposed to be nearly as good if not equal to laser prints at pretty much the same speed with quicker start due to their heat-free technology (no heat-up time).
> 
> ...


That at least looks better than the ET-2*** (notice non M) but I doubt it since it's in the same series although being a MFP but at 200 EUR I guess you can't expect much and I doubt you'll even find a Laser MFP at the price point.
For comparison, https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/5175858_-ecosys-m5526cdn-kyocera.html this is built like a tank however as you can tell price fluctuates a lot (at sub 350EUR its a steal) but again it also depends on what you're looking for. It will work with pretty much everything as it supports any generic protocol there is. Toner costs are decent but it's not a suitable machine if you print a lot, the next model (~500 EUR last year) offers much better price/page ratio however it all depends on how much you're going to print. You can usually find similar deals with Canon from time to time but they tends to be a bit less robust and have creeks etc. However there are of course some limitations such as printing Photos etc going the Laser printer route.

Also the MSRP is well... off the charts, you'll be lucky if there's a 10% margin on electronics in general as a reseller and what Epson suggests is ridicious (as with pretty much any other manufacturer).


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## MasterOne (May 9, 2021)

diizzy said:


> For comparison, https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/5175858_-ecosys-m5526cdn-kyocera.html this is built like a tank however as you can tell price fluctuates a lot (at sub 350EUR its a steal) but again it also depends on what you're looking for.


Thanks for the hint, I haven't looked at Kyocera at all, but comparing their M5521cdn and M5526cdn I can't really see the point or advantage with quite a higher TCO and my intention to get away from toner based technology due to its particulates emission.

I have been using laser printers for a very long time, and besides my growing concerns about particulates pollution they have always been a disappointment in the long run. I have just gotten rid of my latest, a Brother HL-5450DNT, which has gone kaput after less than 6 years and bad printing results with using 3rd party toners and drums. Besides, afaik current generations don't even work with 3rd party toners anymore, at least that's what I have read about printers from HP.

The chosen Epson EcoTank ET-M2170 may not be a professional unit, but promises a reasonable TCO and fulfills my desire to get away from toner particulates. It is now well supported by the available escpr2 driver, so I don't really care that it's only a "cheap" GDI printer that doesn't talk PCL or other protocols. And it comes with a 3 years warranty, so Epson is putting some confidence on their technology, despite what others may thing about ink being a dead end. I really consider this a viable alternative to any available monochrome laser printer / MFP.


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## sidetone (May 9, 2021)

When you keep mentioning "particulates pollution". Do you mean in the environment where you use your printer, or do you mean in the manufacturing process? It implies the manufacturing process, but I think you're talking about the room where the printer is. The link you showed before, was just about Epson's EcoTank. If it's in the printing room, it may matter how much dust is created.

My ink printers dry up all the time, because I hardly use them. I want something that can be used as rarely as I use it, without needing to print monthly for maintenance. For going the ink route, Epson looks great. For combo devices, it's also great, if drivers can make use of both printing and scanning on them. If this is so, I'll look at Epson and other manufacturers for grayscale laser printers. I previously brought a new HP for its drivers. I would only need something reliable for simple documents, and can forgo color printing, except for it to include color scanning. If it's about particulate dust in the room, I would rarely use the laser printer, so dust particulate would be minimal.

I used a secondhand HP laserjet grayscale printer before. With the toner that came with it, there were a lot of blurs/speckles/sprays printed on the page, especially near the corners. With the toner replaced, the prints looked professional in grayscale: a catalog (made through the use of print/scribus-devel) could be printed in black and white that looked as professional as commercial color catalogs. Then later, the toner started printing blurs/spray over the page. I don't need professional printing, so that will be fine for the purpose of simple documents. If other printer brands allow common toners to be used, instead of a more expensive one from a single manufacturer, that will be good.



MasterOne said:


> I don't really care that it's only a "cheap" GDI printer that doesn't talk PCL or other protocols.


It's not a GDI or Win printer. It's an ESC printer, which Epson makes, and is supported by ported drivers. It may not be PCL: a few printers understand multiple printer languages. PCL is the language made by HP, but is generic for use by other print manufacturers, so they don't have to pay a license to use Postscript, which adds to the cost of a printer for the consumer. Most gets converted to or from Postscript language in the desktop/server (via CUPS, LPR, filters or other software), to the printer language (PCL, ESC, Postscript) a printer understands.


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## MasterOne (May 9, 2021)

Well, I indeed mean the dust the printer creates. The printer is standing in my office behind my desk in reachable vicinity, which is why I am concerned about the dust ("particulates" or "particulate matter") it creates.

When you say "grayscale" printer I assume you mean monochrome printer. I don't need color, which only adds to printing costs, and with the wish to ditch laser technology with toner use, only the Epson ET-M series remained. It will be the only printer in use in our small office and thus there will be no chance of ink / print head drying out.

About the supported printer languages, you are right of course, it's an ESC printer that supports GDI emulation (which is stated that way in the product specifications). CUPS + escpr2 driver package and good to go.


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## astyle (May 11, 2021)

MasterOne : When you talk about 'particulate emissions', I can assure you, that's not an issue, unless the printer gathers dust as it sits in a corner, forgotten by everybody, until somebody gives it a good kick. BTW, inkjets, no matter how you slice it, are much worse (at getting insides of a printer dirty with ink spray) than laser printers. I've seen a few relatively new inkjets just before the pandemic - after a few weeks in service, the plastic walls are already covered in ink splashes. But when changing toner cartridges in a LaserJet - it may be a bit warmer inside, but there's no splashes, and no chance of toner drying out from dis-use.

My own P1102w is actually right next to my bed, and it gets occasional use. After 7 years of it decorating my room like that (and 10 years of ownership), nothing happened. I think that unless you have a health condition that makes you sensitive to dust, this amounts to making a mountain out of a molehill. Having lived both in Europe and US, I can tell that dustiness is a worse problem in EU, where a lot of buildings date back to WWII or even earlier. But I'm getting off topic here...


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## sidetone (May 11, 2021)

Dust has been an issue for me. It came from my room. Then I put foam in a small opening to the attic that had fiberglass insulation which heat and humidity carried a lot of it in the air. Since then, the air quality in my room has improved. I couldn't figure out why I had headaches, breathing irritations, and woke up with less breath before I thought to do that. I just knew it had to do with my room, because this didn't happen in my previous home. Dust was also affecting my computer.

Anyway, for when I get a laser printer, it won't be used enough to cause noticeable problems, and the dust won't be harsh fiberglass. It depends how harsh the particulate is and how much there is.

The smell of printed paper from a laserjet is fresh, and didn't seem to be irritating. Maybe it depends on how often it gets used. Other particulates are irritating immediately and I notice them, even if I can't immediately figure out where it's coming from.


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## bakul (May 11, 2021)

If you are sensitive to dust you may wish to use that as an excuse to build/buy a particulate matter sensor. Should be easy to hook up to a FreeBSD machine as sensors like PMS5003 have a serial interface and are not too expensive.


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## guidok (May 11, 2021)

MasterOne said:


> I am looking for a multifunction printer that works flawlessly under FreeBSD, mainly for office use.
> 
> Desired features are:
> 
> ...


I have been using a Lexmark MC2535 adwe for over a year now. Works just fine with CUPS (including duplex printing). Haven't tried scanning via SANE yet. I simply have the printer either email me the scanned documents or store them on a network share.

Previously I had FreeBSD automatically locate the printer by means of mDNS (using Avahi) as described on my blog. However, that sometimes stopped working, requiring restarts of `avahi-dnsconfd, avahi-daemon, cupsd`. These days I have the IP address of the printer reserved in the DHCP pool on my router. In CUPS I now specify `ipps://192.168.0.32:443/ipp/print`. This always works reliably.


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## astyle (May 11, 2021)

guidok said:


> I have been using a Lexmark MC2535 adwe for over a year now. Works just fine with CUPS (including duplex printing). Haven't tried scanning via SANE yet. I simply have the printer either email me the scanned documents or store them on a network share.
> 
> Previously I had FreeBSD automatically locate the printer by means of mDNS (using Avahi) as described on my blog. However, that sometimes stopped working, requiring restarts of `avahi-dnsconfd, avahi-daemon, cupsd`. These days I have the IP address of the printer reserved in the DHCP pool on my router. In CUPS I now specify `ipps://192.168.0.32:443/ipp/print`. This always works reliably.


No need to do anything special on FreeBSD like restarting daemons or reserving IP addresses on your router. My P1102w has the same setup, I owned 3 wi-fi routers since buying the printer, and Avahi was never an issue. Just power cycle the router if it loses your printer. 

But having the ability to tell the scanner device directly to save scanned stuff on a network share (as opposed to using SANE on the computer) - that's usually a rather expensive feature.


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## sidetone (Jun 7, 2021)

guidok said:


> These days I have the IP address of the printer reserved in the DHCP pool on my router. In CUPS I now specify `ipps://192.168.0.32:443/ipp/print`. This always works reliably.


I'm trying to understand this. Your printer is set up on your router, and not your FreeBSD machine? Then your FreeBSD machine accesses it? I only understand how to get mine available on localhost.

IPP can work over the services of https (443) or ipp (631).

Previously, I also made an error in understanding client.conf(5), where the first line reads:


> (depreciated on macos)


I thought this was a misspelling of "macros", or something else like depreciated overall for FreeBSD, but now when I think about it, it looks like it means MacOS (Macintosh OS). MacOS has it's own way of doing things, likely for this too.

For local printer sharing, GNUTLS is needed for certificate validation. GNUTLS can hide the password and username, to prevent a breach. Self-signed certificates are the default, and aren't as secure. It makes sense to discourage remote connections outside of LAN use for a self-signed certificate. I'm unsure why remote connections outside of a LAN to CUPS are discouraged, if a CA-certificate is used. The default CUPS setting is for localhost, and not sharing a printer over a LAN.

CUPS encryption settings are set in client.conf, cupsd.conf(5) and cups-files.conf(5).



			Server Security
		



			Managing Encryption


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