I’ve noticed a general sentiment that printing on Linux is (or at least was) extremely cumbersome and difficult. Why is that?
Is printing cumbersome and difficult on Linux? Yes, it can be. Is it better than Windows? Also yes.
That’s not been my experience.
Granted, printers suuuuuck. But I was legit surprised when both the printing and scanning functions in Linux were hands down better than windows.
SAME. Everything prints faster and worked well from day one.
SANE? :D
We raise our CUPS to your pun.
Well played!
I think that used to be the case more than it is now. Linux now uses the same printing system (CUPS) as macOS, and macOS printing has to work or Apple’s customers would be unsatisfied.
It is way easier than anything else.
This was also my recent experience on PopOs!
I just started with PopOS a couple years ago. I’m not a power user. I’ve got one of those crappy travel printers. I think it’s Canon? I forget. It worked just fine for me.
Any problem I’ve ever had printing is almost exclusively a problem with the printer, it’s usually yellow or cyan. Doesn’t matter the document is black&white.
my experience is that through network, it’s just flawless. I turned on my printer and sure there it was. (though this feature just became a huge issue recently :P)
HP Laser 107w, driverless, over LAN.
I just Ctrl+P from any software and it prints.
It also prints programmatically (for e.g. folk.computer ) thanks to IPP.
I didn’t have to “think about printing” since I have that setup so I don’t know where you get that sentiment.
Linux printing is very complex. Before Foomatic came along you got to experience it in all it’s glory and setting up a working printing chain was a pain. The Foomatic Wikipedia page has a diagram that will make your head spin.
No doubt, the kernel itself is also quite complex… but my comment here is on the user experience perspective, namely, for me at least “it just works”. So I’m not trying to imply it will work for anybody flawlessly nor that it’s due to the simplicity of the stack, solely that it works, for me.
It was terrible in the 90’s. Since CUPS became standard around 2000 it’s significantly easier.
I haven’t used a new printer or an inkjet in a number of years now, but using my 18yo HP laserjet is a matter of plugging it in and checking it’s status under the main distro settings menu. That was also on par with the windows process iirc.
I do remember 20 years ago when I had to sideload pcmcia wifi drivers, though.
True, i have 20yo hp inkjet and 17yo epson inkjet, old printers work like a charm on linux and you can refill them with standard medical syringe too
It used to be much, much more difficult than it is today, but your experiences will still vary according to what type of printer you have. The problem is drivers. There are still printers out there that have no working Linux driver (mostly old, non-Postscript-supporting, with no Mac drivers either). Some will work with a generic driver, but some features aren’t available. The more annoying case is the one where the manufacturer put out a driver once, many years ago, it doesn’t work properly with modern versions of CUPS, and they can’t be arsed to revise it.
But most printers these days will do basic one-sided 100%-size prints out of the box, and that’s all many people need.
The Canon Pixma has always problematic for me with driver issues.
my printer spits out page upon page of random characters and mess when I try to print from my desktop, gave up and use my phone now
You need to set the correct settings. It takes a few tries but in my experience it isn’t that hard
you need to set the correct settings
thanks for the insightful suggestion wowee
thats just cuz printers generally suck
Printing is a bitch no matter the platform and its usually the producers of the printers that fail. Everyone wants to make their own standard or interpret any standard in their own way. Duplex settings? Sometimes easy to find, and sometimes called something else and put in a weird spot of the interface.
Basic printing to usb is fine on Linux. My pi zero hooked to a brother laser has been providing wifi printing for me for the last 5 years. Installed cups and connected the usb and it was rocking
Anecdotally Windows is the only platform I’ve used where printing (and scanning) didn’t tend to “just work”. The only issue I’ve had printing under Linux was with a second hand printer my dad got that we couldn’t get to print from any computer. (shrug)
