Printers and Drivers

[BenTurpin]

After having lost a few hours of my life once more trying to install a printer driver, and in the process having lost my temper, mind and almost my laptop out of frustration, I really would like to know for once why our email providers know precisely what kind of advertisement belong to the content of our mail, yet if you plug in a printer your computer and internet connection cannot detect the most basic information. If I want to print a document and I have plugged in printer A, doesn't it make sense that my computer and my internet connection, make the kind suggestion: "You have plugged in Printer A, you need a Driver for Printer A, shall we look on the internet for this driver and with your permission download the driver?" After which the download and instalation happens in a blink. Isn't this what modern technology promise us?
In the meantime I will go back to sending a mail with attachment to my friends computer and print it from there.

ton

[grahammechanical]

You are confusing things.

I for one would not want a printer automatically connecting to the internet and downloading software to my machine. Even in the old days when software was installed from floppy discs inserting a floppy disc from an untrusted source ran the risk of having malicious code installed on the system.

Every web site we visit downloads code in the form of web pages. They also download code called "cookies." This is useful if we are a regular visitor to those sites. It is these cookies that are being used to target advertising.

The situation that you have experienced has been around for a long time. In the past Windows users had the same problem. Microsoft solved that problem with an advertising campaign that forced manufacturers to get their hardware accredited to work with Windows. People were told not to buy hardware that did not have a label confirming that the hardware was compatible with various versions of Windows.

Linux users do not get the same consideration. We do not have the purchasing power to give an incentive to manufacturers to include Linux drivers with the hardware.

Life is tough.

[kc1di]

I have found over the years that HP supports linux the best , IMHO.