Printing under Ubuntu

[Daniel Mons]

On Fri May 16  7:40 , Paul Gear  sent:

>Daniel Mons wrote:
>> HP are the way to go.  They have made an enormous commitment to writing 
>> and releasing first-party FLOSS drivers for an enormous range of their 
>> printing, scanning and multifunction devices.
>
>I don't think it's quite as clear-cut as that (although i have no
>hesitation in recommending HP), but you shouldn't take my word or
>Daniel's for it - you should look up the specific model at:
>
>	http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting

Yes, it should be said that a wide variety of printer manufacturers do make
Postscript-compatible printers.  Even if they don't release drivers themselves,
by virtue of supporting an open standard like Postscript, it means that the
community can make "drivers" (ie: PPD [Postscript Printer Definition] files) easily.

In many cases also, some printer manufacturers use other manufacturers' parts and
print engines.  As such, you'll find that many CUPS drivers will work under a
wide range of printers (back some years ago I was using HP pxlmono CUPS drivers
for Kyocera printers with great success).

Again, I recommend HP simply because HP themselves have been making the effort to
upstream drivers to the CUPS, Gutenprint and Foomatic projects.  While many other
printers work just fine, HP are one of a few making a very direct effort to write
and release code themselves, rather than just relying on community effort.

On the topic of the OpenPrinting site: their databases are often out of date with
new printers (not surprising, given that people like Canon release new printers
every few months).  If you are using a printer that's not on the OpenPrinting
website, be a good netizen and submit your personal successes/failures to the
team with the drivers you've used, and what level of testing you've done.  This
will help others in choosing future hardware.

-Dan