Printing Rant! Why is this so hard?

WasPentalive@lemmy.one to Linux@lemmy.ml – 54 points –

Debian 12. HP Laserjet Professional P1606dn

If it prints at all, it prints the top inch of the test page or just random binary. I have tried the recommended driver, the driverless driver, the Generic PCL 4/5 driver, the Generic PCL 6 driver. And probably others I am not remembering.

I am trying to print over Ethernet, but I am about to drag the printer over near my desk and print via USB.

Fortunately, I don't have actual critical printing to do right now and I am only setting up a printer after installing Debian 12. BTW this means it is a fresh install of Debian 12 too.

I have been helpdesk support at a data center. I would not consider myself a dummy, but this is getting ridiculous. A task that should have taken all of 10 minutes has taken over 2 hours so far.

How are we ever going to get "The Year of Linux on the Desktop" if simple printing is and continues to be such a pain?

49

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

Next time don't buy HP, :(.

I bought this printer years ago. It has worked fine most of the time up until now. Perhaps this is what I get for installing the latest Debian.
I had a Canon multifunction that absolutely refused to work with Linux. Who sells Linux friendly printers?

Brother printers are usually pretty good with Linux. HP ought to work with Linux just fine though, they've had Linux drivers since forever.

As mentioned by another commenter, Brother sells out of the box working on Linux printers.

I was about to say Samsung, but then I just googled and found they were bought by HP lol... So no idea.

1 more...
1 more...