this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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I help organizing events a few times a year. The administration needs a working printer hooked up to a laptop at each event. For more than a decade now, setting up the printer to work with a Windows laptop has always taken at least an hour, sometimes 2 or 3.
Yeah, printers are a pain. That's as true on Linux as it is on Windows. I sometimes think that printer drivers are designed specifically to screw with customers on all OSes.
EDIT: Oh, forgot to mention the most "fun" part, when the printer mysteriously malfunctions mid event and needs to be urgently trouble-shooted.
Get a laser printer. Cheaper, more reliable, and they don’t have all the built in BS that laser printers have. A big reason so many Windows users have issues is because of the intentional DRM sabotage by the printer manufacturer, to make sure you’re only using approved ink cartridges. But toner is cheap and easy, and the printer manufacturers don’t bother trying to block users from printing.
But that same DRM sabotage is why Linux has so many issues with printers. And it’s also working from the disadvantage of having to reverse engineer the official drivers to figure out how they work, so they can then be ported over to Linux.
Just make sure you keep the laser printer away from areas that you occupy regularly/while you use it. They offgas small amounts of ozone, which is toxic. Not to mention that breathing in the toner is pretty terrible too.
Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to do anything about it. The organizers show up with a random laptop and a random printer, and I've just gotta make 'em talk to each other somehow.