I’ve noticed a general sentiment that printing on Linux is (or at least was) extremely cumbersome and difficult. Why is that?

  • SlippiHUD@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • The Doctor@beehaw.org
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    3 months ago

    It was terrible in the 90’s. Since CUPS became standard around 2000 it’s significantly easier.

  • Oisteink@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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

  • Baaahb@feddit.nl
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    Dunno, I own the cheapest Ink Jet HP sells and setup is much faster on Linux than via their drivers on Windows.
    Gnome Scanner also wipes the floor with any scanning application from HP/MSFT

  • slembcke@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    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)

  • the16bitgamer@programming.dev
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    3 months ago

    Because printing in Linux both works and is supported and not supported and hope that there are drivers and they work.

    For example, I have a brother printer and in both arch and Ubuntu/mint the printer worked out of the box. But I was missing features like double sided printing. So I had to download drivers for it.

    In arch the drivers were on the AUR, so I was printing is seconds.

    In Ubuntu/mint they weren’t in my package manager, so I had to go to brother’s website and hope they had drivers. Brother did and while it took a bit it did work too. No worse than windows.

  • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz
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    3 months ago

    Recently ran into an issue with Endeavour OS where the built in printer program would give errors when trying to add my network ecotank printer.

    Tried using cups terminal and it worked the first time, and is still working weeks later.

    So some of the GUI printer apps that distros ship with have issues apparently, but I don’t know the extent of it.

  • Unmapped@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    I noticed this too. In theprimeagens recent video on cups problem they kept making jokes about printing on Unix. I think I must be lucky or something cause so far every printer I have setup on Linux has been easier then having to download all the bloatware to make them work on windows. But I have only done about 6 printers so far on Linux.

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I use printer with a USB personally. No issues with that but I got an HP printer that is really weird with the network stuff

  • radau@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    My brother needed the driver installed in debian on Qubes but has been flawless beyond that. When I was still running arch it just worked out of the box

  • superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    You’re printin experience within Linix is going to entirely depend on which printer you have. Some work out of the box immediately others take hours to get working and digging through forums looking for drivers.

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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      3 months ago

      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.