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They work better in Linux than Windows, not to mention backwards compatibility.
EDIT: I may be wrong about newest printer models, 2020 and above.
EDIT2: Hardware problems are an entirely different issue.
Huh? Linux and printers are the best
My hp printer has worked perfectly and reliably with CUPS for years now. Just turn it on and print, works every time.
Open source print drivers, baby! I still hate CUPS though.
This wasn't true *not so long ago.
*Depends on your definition of long 🤷.
CUPS is absolutely amazing compared to windows printer drivers which had whole ass critical CVEs several times already.
Even Apple uses CUPS
CUPS is horrible, and also had its share of critical vulnerabilities. It is just better than the LPD mess we had before.
It is not a Linux specific thing - it was developed when there still were a lot of UNIX variants around. Apple was a very early contributor, and had quite a bit of influence in making it successful.
It’s no surprise Apple uses CUPS. They wrote it, after all.
Edit: TIL Apple didn’t write CUPS themselves but they bought the company that did it pretty early in the game. Here’s a LWN article from the time, exposing some of the worries that came with the news of the acquisition: https://lwn.net/Articles/242020/
With cups it's pretty much painless on linux form me, though some distros have a very restrictive firewall configuration out of the box, so you have to whitelist it before using. Not too complicated, but can be very frustrating for new users who never touched a firewall before.
Printers fucking suck.
Back in the day you'd just cat file.txt > /dev/lp0 and it would work. Mostly.
A Linux meme that's somewhat critical of Linux?
I wonder what the comments will be like....
It's not really critical of Linux, it's criticising those stupid fucking printers in general
My printer used to integrate perfectly with windows 11. I was using some Ancient driver I found on some internet archive. windows updater found a new drive, now it's a mess of different UIs to print or scan shit
There is a way to disable driver updates via Windows update.
Do a rollback on the driver, should bring back the old driver.
Brother printer initialised in a couple of clicks in Arch, took 10 minutes to do it in Windows.
I have been installing Arch for the last 2 years, so windows 10 min duration is significantly faster
Printers are pretty plug'n'play these days, at least until something technical goes wrong. Getting exactly what you want on paper can be pretty tough, though. I wrote an entire printing stack from scratch for an embedded system, but that was for a very specific set of models from a single manufacturer. It actually worked every time, especially when there were errors and warnings, but it took actual effort.
Brothers linux script still working great for me and my aging printers
+1 to brother printers
The printers are probably running Linux too.
Nope, *BSD... most of them.
I would only think them to work better on Linux because the software you're using isn't made by the printer company. Their software sucks. The hardware sucks, too. They're made to be shit because a perfect printer isn't profitable.
Since I've moved in South East Asia, I have discovered that:
The only reason we in developped country get scammed like we are, is because of IP laws and governments that allow manufacturers to abuse them with no consequences at the expense of the customers (and the planet).
My printer has to go through like 5 power cycles for it to even detect its ink cartridges. I guess thats what i get for taking the ewaste printer from the office
Atleast it was free? I did the same thing, took office salvage. I’ll be replacing it soon with a laser printer.
On linux i was able to setup my hp laserjet no problem, cups recognised it just fine; the problem is with the integrated scanner, SANE sees that there is some sort of scanner but fails to talk to it, i have windows 10 installed on a usb key essentially only to use the scanner
I do freelance sysadmin work and Macs are actually the hardest to mass deploy printer configurations to.
Macs are usually the hardest to do of any sort of enterprise management. But printers? Holy fuck, its a nightmare lmao
Has anyone had luck or experience with using IPP for printing from Linux? A standard networking protocol for printing sounds like it should make a lot of these problems mute.
Works as intended usually.
Yep, works OK on one of my setups at work.
Yeah I switched to LMDE a couple months ago and I plugged in my printer for the first time but long ago. I was worried it wouldn't work at first but it started printing right away!
I had to start the scanner tool from the command line, I felt like a hacker but it did usually work on Linux.
lp0 is still on fire tho...
Say what now?
you sir, are fire
Stop printing.
Honestly who NEEDS a printer anymore? We've moved on from printing out driving directions from MapQuest and burning our own DVD collections. We should ditch home printers and only use online printing services whenever you want something physical so it's made nicely by someone who knows what they're doing.
Many people still use printers.
Yeah, he was basically telling them to stop, or maybe more generally he was telling them to take a look at whether they really need to print things.
I've found Mac OS is by far the best OS for getting printers to work tbh
OSX and Linux both use the Common Unix Printing System. It works more or less the same on both systems.
It used zeroconf/bonjur out of the box when no one else used it (or had to do some serious configs in order to get it working), that's why. And, of course, since it's the second most used OS other than Windows, printer manufacturers configured avahi/zeroconf/bonjur out of the box on their printers.
Hardware problems are an entirely different issue.
Literally the biggest issue
No joke, printing is like the #1 thing I like most about switching from Windows to Linux. I still get errors about the bypass tray every time I try to print from Windows. I'M NOT USING THE BYPASS TRAY!
I used to have a MacBook Pro and the printer worked perfectly when I printed from it, whereas my windows PC always had issues.
I had the opposite experience, it even works with my Steam Deck.
Printers are weird..
I stopped using paper and suddenly my printer problems went away
