Am I correct in concluding that on the subject of printers, "Linux-friendly" is strictly a relative term? As far as I know, no printer manufacturer actually makes a Linux driver for their printers or does anything else to more than passively accommodate Linux users; volunteer Linux programmers make the drivers and it's just a matter of the companies not preventing them. Or do the companies sometimes do something more helpful?

Yes, that's probably a fair comment. HP and Brother have reasonable level of support, with Epson not far behind (selected models). Canon support has been weak historically, but I note that even they appear to have been providing improved support more recently.

No, most of the major hardware vendors do write proprietary Linux drivers to support for selected models - again HP seem to have the best Linux tools and drivers. I have found Brother to provide a good level of Linux support, having owned and used several models over the last 10 years. However, many would argue the open and free drivers are best anyway (for improvement and bug fixing), and OpenPrinting is a good place to start (with selecting makes and models supported by free drivers).

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/colla.../databaseintro

I've used a couple HP all-in-printers and an Epson all-in-one printer. As far as the printing side goes, the HPLIP seems to support the printers out of the box. The drivers for the Epson printer are a little behind. I had to use drivers for a slightly older model for a couple months. It took a little bit longer than that for support of the scanner side of things.

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I've used Xerox, HP, and Brother. The Xerox have worked great with Linux, but the actual physical reliability of the machine leaves something to be desired (mainly motherboard failures). The HPs have been somewhere in between. Good physical reliability, but compatibility with the Linux machines seems to drop in and out. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it decides to switch all documents to landscape mode for no reason. Of the three, the Brother has been the best. Good Linux compatibility, good reliability (so far).

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I've had excellent experiences with HP and good experiences with Epson, but that was several years ago.

Based on my experience, avoid Lexmark.

I haven't used any other brands of computers with Linux.

Very good...I want this Brother model whenever I feel like spending the money. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls?ie=UTF8&me=

They're a good printer. I currently connect at work to a much older but reliable workhorse (HL2150N model). At home I have a Brother DCP-7055 mono laser /scanner device.

HP stuff is the best for UNIX-like systems. Can't go wrong with them.

Same here with HP. They have their own staff write the hplip drivers and they always work well. We just moved from a spitter to a laser and it worked without any need to update anything, just told hplip to look for it.
I can even scan remotely with xsane. Should have upgraded years ago.

That's the same one I have.

HP and Brother are probably the most Linux friendly. Epson has some decent drivers too. However you should check individual printers:
http://www.openprinting.org/printers

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^ since hp aquired palm and palms latest webos is linux based, hp made their printer drivers available for linux since most of their all-in-ones are essentially just touchpad tablets connected to a printer.

at work, we use HP laserjet and Xerox, all features work. At home I use Epson Stylus NX400. Everything works. I use iscan for scanning on home printer.

HPLIP (HP Linux Imaging Program) covers most of the current HP printers, see here to check what's covered, all 2,345 of them apparently! I've just bought a Photosmart 5510 which, once connected to my network via WiFi, was picked up by HPLIP without problem.

Play Bonny!

Samsung also do a Linux unified driver, with installation script and configuration tools.

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