Printer, scanner, fax, copy, all in one; best supported, lowest cost initial and main
 

Just seeing if anyone has some info. to share regarding Multifunction Printer, scanner, fax, copy, all in one machines; that is best supported and lowest cost initial purchase cost and maintenance IE ink etc.. which are easy to setup and work with in Linux Mint 17? Extreme Photo quality not needed. Just need to Scan, Print, Copy, and Fax infrequently. Things in the market change too fast for me to keep up with.
Now using an Epson perfection scanner that has all the slide attachments for scanning slides but it has problems saving to new formats [using simple scan]. [know anyone looking for one of these nostalgia machines?] As far as printer it's an old HP Photo Smart. Do Epson allin1s play well with Linux now? I hear they have the best ink usage and are reasonably priced but never got one to scan or Fax. I ain't found much on line about it yet. Thanx

My own experience and my reading here indicates that HP likely provides the best Linux support, though my Epson worked quite nicely also, but that's was almost eight years ago, just as with you. Lexmark and Canon generally do not work and play well with Linux. Some posters here have also reported good experiences with Brother.

The HP driver package is called HPLIP and is in the repos for every distro I've played with. Note that the GUI front-end of hplip is often a separate package.

I have a slightly older multi CX4200?? that works with many linux distro's. I try to never print so it almost never get's used. I do scan.

Found this and it helped some
 

http://linuxdeal.com/printers.php

all I need is ink usage but I guess that can vary from machine to machine even if same model#.
One says Epson ink frugal another says Epson is ink hog. Mom syas Brother is ink hog and expensive.

And it would be nice to know which cartriges are least expensive and refillable.
Pretty sure Epson no smudge ink is toxic and Brother cartriges are not reloadable. HP may have reloadable issues too.