[NBLUG/talk] Printers

[cecrops at sandwich.net]

My mother's printer must be one of those HP models with the circuitry rigged to
refuse to print anything after a time period and claim she is out of ink even
though she does not use it that often, and it says the replacement cartidges she
got in a 4-pack of replacement cartidges are all out of ink, and she's about ready
to throw it out a window. So being the techie in the family, I'll be recommending
and probably buying a new printer. 

Looking into printers is a good opportunity to get up to date on the status of
printing protocols and Linux compatibility where I don't know anything about the
subject other than the fact that cups replaced lpr a while ago, and zeroconf looked
like the new network discovery standard ten years ago but everyone stopped talking
about it.

This looks like the protocols information that I was looking for. 
http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-2.0/network.html


Questions:

1. Can someone recommend a good and affordable general-purpose printer/scanner combo
that doesn't chip the cartidges and rip you off? 

2. Are there any printer vendors that are known to NOT be Linux compatibile and
should be avoided if Linux compatibility is an issue?