this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2025
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I have a brother laser Printer which I use via IPP from my network. It can hold a bunch of pages in RAM and Print them once the other (it can Print 3 in a row) are finished.

Now what does any propriatery printing service do?

They feed ONE PAGE AT A TIME, so my printer starts printing, then it starts cooling off, but then it has to HEAT UP AGAIN FOR FUCKS SAKE, and that every time.

Also if I just print via CUPS from my Linux machine, its like 5 times faster.

And I just don't understand how my 15€ thin client from over 20 years ago can do more and better than my 1200€ iPad.

Just a reminder why I keep using Linux.

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[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

They feed one at a time.

See this is what I hate about all these propreitery bs. They don't put the option to select alternative because "user too dumb."

[–] undrwater@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago

Android has a cups client app, so you can use that instead of Google's printing service.

It's on f-droid.

[–] paequ2@lemmy.today 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Yeah! CUPS is great. I just connected my Brother printer to it and everything Just Works.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

i used to have an old brother laser printer that lasted for almost 15 years and the replacement that i got lasted less than 2; it makes me wonder if it was intentional.

[–] 51dusty@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

bump. my brother multifunction worked flawlessly. scanner, printer...I assume the fax would work if it was hooked up.

Mac is 85-90%

Windows, I just completely uninstall/reinstall for each use because it is more reliable than trying to use it otherwise.

oddly enough, the Canon I got will only work properly from the phone, which pisses me off everyday. that thing is a POS.

[–] DeceasedPassenger@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I used to sell printers. Canon printers, more than any other brand, are purely just a vehicle to sell photo paper, ink, and ink subscriptions. Their laser units are another story, quite capable machines (not sure about lifelong reliability), but the inkjets are hot garbage. They have multiple models that cost less to purchase than the replacement cartridges... With the sort of build quality you might expect at that price point. HP, as awful as they are, never stooped quite that low afaik. Brother laser is the way to go, always.

Edit just to shit even harder on Canon, the amount of those printers returned to store was 3x all others put together. Only had one Brother returned in my entire 2 years there, and that was only because of logistics, not the machine itself.

[–] 51dusty@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

big ol dookie on Canon...💩💩💩

one of the worst technology purchases I ever made.

I bought the laser brother for scan and documents, which is awesome.

but I needed something for photos.... found this "highly rated" Canon photo only printer.... hot garbage.

[–] blobjim@hexbear.net 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)
[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Ehhh.... Apple took over CUPS development.

Michael Sweet of Easy Software Products developed CUPS in the late 90s. Apple hired Michel Sweet about a decade later and bought the source code.

After he left apple (another 10 years or so later), OpenPrinting forked it and Michael Sweet continued working on it there.

But no, Apple did not develop CUPS. I don't blame you for thinking they did though.

Edit: Forgot to note.

Source: I'm fucking old now and was using Linux before CUPS existed. Holy shit was it great once it went IPP from LPD.

Edit 2: Sorry because Apple does this a lot and this one still annoys me - Safari was built on KHTML, aka KDE and Konqueror. So anyone trying to say that Apple made WebKit all in house would also be wrong.

Apple likes to do that. Take stuff and then pretend they made it. Especially from open source projects.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Companies do that. Apple more quiet, Microsoft more abusive.

Edit: while writing this, i thought of multiple cases, where they invited some project dev to a talk for a inhouse job and then ghosted them until they were done cloning it. Winget/Appget (which is dead now) one example.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 4 points 2 days ago

Yup. MS has been more blatant and ruthless, where Apple has quietly taken (or even just taken credit for) the works of others over the years. For Apple you've got the ipod click wheel (creative), the original GUI (PARC), slide to unlock (noenode).... Apple, much like MS, has been doing this sort of stuff from the start.

[–] blobjim@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm glad my decades old grudges against apple could be informative!

[–] blobjim@hexbear.net 5 points 2 days ago

Apple is such a frustrating company lol. In Seattle we still don't have tap-to-pay for public transit with iPhones because Apple keeps so much control over what the NFC transceiver on their devices can be used for. You can tap-to-pay with Android devices. So I'm stuck still using my physical card.

[–] EarlGrey@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 days ago

Yeah and It's used in iOS.

I feel like there's another issue going on here because I print from my iPhone constantly and never have this issue.

[–] BCBoy911@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

At least someone has had good experiences with CUPS lol. cupsd is usually the first thing I uninstall when I install Linux onto a PC since it never works.

[–] pewpew@feddit.it 19 points 3 days ago

Weird, CUPS used to be one of the few software that worked mostly flawlessly out of the box. It works pretty well for me

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This has not been my experience .. at .. all.

Perhaps it would be helpful to discover what exactly doesn't work for you and fix that, rather than remove CUPS because one time it didn't work for you seven years ago.

[–] Peasley@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

the implication that they only tried it once is childish

Perhaps it would be helpful if people who weren't interested in discussing in good faith would refrain from posting

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How would you suggest I respond in the future?

We have a person, claiming that CUPS doesn't work and they now uninstall it on every installation.

There is no context, no data, no information that suggests what the issue is, what they tried, when this occurred, on which platform, under which conditions.

In other words, the user was essentially saying "CUPS sux".

Having used Linux as my main system for over 25 years, that sentiment did not match my own experience, does not help anyone, not me, not the user and not the OP who was trying to solve a problem, let alone anyone else reading along.

I responded accordingly.

[–] Peasley@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I would suggest responding to what they wrote, rather than what they didn't write or what you imagine they may have written, but that's just me.

Another good option is to not respond at all.

Inventing a strawman then arguing with it is pointless

[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I must have done something wrong because the last time I removed cupsd it bricked my Linux Mint install.

[–] Quazatron@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Cups is awesome. I have an ancient HP laserjet 1100 connected to an ancient parallel-to-Ethernet adapter, connected to my ancient router. Cups works flawlessly with this setup, Windows never worked.

[–] SpookyMulder@twun.io 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

FYI: CUPS was recently outed as extremely insecure and irrevocably broken by design. So if you're not actively printing, it's probably best to uninstall it.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Kratzkopf@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Ghoelian@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago

So it's only the cups-browsed service. I wonder if that's enabled on any distros by default. Will have to check mine tomorrow.

[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Less FYI more PSA (?)

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago

Usually the print service is implemented by the printer manufacturer. Maybe try installing one or both of these apps, I needed them to print, and it worked fine after that:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brother.mfc.mobileconnect

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brother.mfc.brprint

I'm sure there's some way to use PS or PCL printing from Android too, but that's probably a lot more effort.

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio -1 points 3 days ago

You could print to CUPS from the other devices and potentially bypass all those shenanigans.

Also, CUPS has a PDF printer which saves you from even heating up your printer at all .. I haven't had a printer in my life for over 25 years.