this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
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This was shockingly bad last time I needed to do it (years ago) and only had access to Linux devices. I now use my phone for scanning and printing and I've given up on trying to figure it out on my Linux machines.
I love that there's a big jump in adoption for Linux, but I feel it is still stuck in the "hobbyist" space, more suited to people who love to thinker with everything.
There would be wider / faster adoption if there would be some desktop environment with coherent user experience available, but this is the hardest problem to solve and unfortunately one people don't really want to pay for so I doubt we will have it in the near future
https://opensource.com/article/18/9/linux-scanner-tools
The first one, Simple Scan aka Document Scanner works like a dream on my Fedora laptop. The UI can be a bit finnicky though when selecting scanned pages, but the keyboard shortcuts have helped me immensely when scanning documents from my Brother LaserJet.
I'm sure there's a command-line tool that's even more efficient than the tools from the article. That's the magical thing about Linux. I was able to use a file recovery command-line tool to recover files after I botched a transfer to an external SSD. A to I would've had to pay for or use some sketch asf site on Windows.
Oh, nice. I ran simplescan and it just worked. I've never actually tried to scan anything with my MFP Brother.
I have no experience with Linux+printers, but everything I've read suggests that it usually just works and has way less friction than printers in Windows
Funny enough, my shitbox HP Inkjet is actually faster to install on Linux and Gnome Scan is way better than any proprietary scanning software I've used
I could never get the scanner to work on that cannon printer. For printing, I couldn't get the paper size to work at all. My PDF paper size was A4, my phisical paper was A4, my printer was set to print on A4, but it still the footer was truncated from the page.
Last time I tried scanning and printing on Windows, it took me over an hour to get the device recognized, the right drivers installed, the printer to actually receive the print job, and so on. Printers are just shitty pieces of hardware, Linux or not.
Brother printers are pretty miserable. I'm on bazzite and no joke, there is a solid 10 minute delay from when I hit the print button to when it prints. It used to scan, then stopped one day with not explanation. Ive use the same printer on the same version/release of fedora on my laptop and it works fine now but it didn't when it worked on my bazzite desktop. The driver/CUPS thing shows up nothing sometimes, and sometimes finds the printer after 400 attempts even if I search by mac address, ip address, hostname, doesn't matter. The little gremlins in the machine decide when I can print or scan.
You've had this experience with multiple Brother printers, or is this anecdotal?
My anecdotal experience is that my Brother printer works just fine, after installing the driver of course. Delay until printing is in seconds. 🤷♂️ It's a WiFi printer, too.
Don't even need a driver with modern IPP supported printers, they just work. At least with basic printing needs, but probably some gaps for complex stuff.
Yeah, my particular one needs a driver unfortunately, but it's fairly old I think.
@victorz @Know_not_Scotty_does "Just install the driver", so you must have a windows with it, too, only to use your own printer...
Yeah I went through the whole process to download the linux drivers and generate the package as outlined on the Brother website. I could never get it functioning properly that way. The generic driver that the bazzite/fedora print manager used occasionally works but again, it does weird stuff sometimes.
@Know_not_Scotty_does If the manufacturer gave linux drivers, they are probably inserted into your linux distribution. So you do not need to install anything.
My specific printer wasn't listed in the default print manager but it also didn't make a difference when I tried to manually add it via the brother website. Its an old and shitty printer, I need to just replace it.
I don't have Windows, no. The drivers are packed in the AUR. If you install the driver on your Android phone you can also print from your phone. Android it's also Linux-based. 😁
On the contrary, I've had exactly opposite experience. Had to use "connection repair tool" every time before printing on windows. On Linux I had to learn what to install at first to make my printer work, but once I did I have never had any problem occur.