What's the state of printing in linux?

[Dustin2128]

Today, I get to install linux to another computer! Whoo for borked XP installs and knowledgable users! Unfortunately, the download speed's being a pain, but that's another issue. One of the things the computer's absolutely going to have to do is print, everything else is word processing and web browsing. I've always heard of linux horror stories with printing (of course, when I started using linux 3 years ago, working wireless was a myth), and I want to know: what's the current state of printing? This is a samsung laser printer, I'll bring up the model number if anyone wants it, and I'm installing Maverick.

[user1397]

well maybe this can sum it up:

I have a desktop with dualboot windows xp and maverick, and an hp all in one printer.

on xp, i have to manually go to the hp website, download the driver, isntall it (which can take up to like 15 minutes for some reason), and then it is ready to print.

on maverick, i simply turned on the printer for the first time in ubuntu, and about 10 seconds later it said it was ready for printing...no configuration done on my part.

[3Miro]

Depends on the printer. Do research, I have seen a few HP printers that work well, on the other hand I had Canon that was really bad. Also, look for differences between 32-bit and 64-bit, sometimes they would only make proprietary drivers for one and not the other.

[cariboo]

Check the make and model in the Openprinting (http://www.openprinting.org/printers) database.

[Dustin2128]

got the livecd up- now for the big moment *anticipates*. Thanks for the link cariboo, it's a CLP-310, looks like its going to work!

[Dustin2128]

Nice! Both out of the box printing support and compiz on an intel graphics card! Maverick's hardware support is amazing!

[mkendall]

So I take my laptop to my sister's house. She has a HP laserjet color printer and Windows 7. Using Windows 7, if she wants to print on both side of the paper, which the printer is capable of doing, she has to print one side then flip it over. I, on the other hand, simply choose whether to flip on the long or short side using the Linux driver.