<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><br><br><div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPad</div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Oct 1, 2020, at 15:07, Damien Calloway <damiencalloway@fastmail.com> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><span>Hello all !</span><br><span></span><br><span>I find myself in an interesting predicament - I have Macs, a Windows </span><br><span>device, two FreeBSD laptops, and some Linux devices that I would like to </span><br><span>use to share my one printer - a Canon Pixma 3520.</span><br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Off the top of my head, the Pi+CUPS sounds like a good direction. I’m using a very old airport express to hook up my HP printer via USB. I don’t see any reason why a Pi wouldn’t work. I have a couple of extra Pis sitting around, and a triple boot Mac/Windows/Linux workstation I might try it on.<div><br></div><div>As far as printers themselves go, HP makes (made?) shitty PCs, but I don’t hesitate to recommend their higher end printers. Many moons ago, I got sick of paying for ink - cartridges would dry out long before the ink was used. Go to use the printer and it just doesn’t work. I bought a $400(?) HP color laser and despite several long distance moves it’s still running like a champ today. As old as it is, if it broke tomorrow, I’d be fine replacing it with the same model. A full set of 4 CMYK toner cartridges last I checked would be around $400. However, the cartridges never expire or dry out, and last quite a long time.</div><div><br></div><div>It has Ethernet built in, which works fine. Putting a print server in front of it and using USB made more sense when I set it up this last time? Don’t remember why I did it that way.</div><div><br></div><div>Laser printers are a good long term investment, but it depends on what you’re doing. Laser won’t match an inkjet for photographs - but when I need those I’ll send them out to a photography print house like MpixPro (now Miller’s). Printing lots of color could get expensive. I generally set it up for grayscale default.</div><div><br></div><div>In terms of compatibility, lasers like my HP tend to do really well at being postscript printers - that is, they can handle lots of different situations using generic PS or PCL drivers. Way too many ink jets and cheap printers require very specific (Windows only - grrrr) drivers. When the printer mfg moves to next year’s models - good luck. Or as the mfg like to say: on sale now! buy a new printer!</div><div><br></div><div>I don’t know anything about the Pixma 3520. I shoot Nikon, but like them Canon makes _excellent_ professional cameras, lenses etc - but I don’t know their printers. For the most part in the consumer printer space, it seems like you get what you pay for.</div><div><br></div><div>Austin McConnell on printer ink - <a href="https://youtu.be/AHX6tHdQGiQ">https://youtu.be/AHX6tHdQGiQ</a></div><div><br></div></body></html>