this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
364 points (97.9% liked)
Linux
13424 readers
825 users here now
A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)
Also, check out:
Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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
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.
@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. 😁