Printing/scanning on Linux

luxade · 2011-12-18 12:40:21

I've played with Linux on and off for a while now (at one point even used it for a month exclusively) and am considering switching back fulltime for several reasons. I do have several concerns though (no microsoft office.. aaaaah) - my biggest one being printing and scanning. It just seems like a total driver nightmare on Linux. Is it really as bad as it seems or will it just take a bit of config? Any other things I should worry myself with before switching? I think most of my concerns are just being a little too used to Windows.. Haven't used Linux in a few months

SS4 · 2011-12-18 12:45:48

That would depend on your printer. I'd recommend HP

sakisds · 2011-12-18 16:13:58

From my experience, scanning is pretty simple. It was a matter of plug-and-play here. About printing, it required some work but still nothing that hard. I guess if you have a printer with no drivers it would be a nightmare.

bohoomil · 2011-12-18 17:16:50

I use scanner extensively under Linux without problems (Canon LiDE 60). Xsane is my front-end of choice and this is a very versatile tool. Native OCR software still can't match the options available for Windows, though, that's why if necessary I use Abby Fine Reader under Wine (there's an older version available free of charge and it works fine). Choosing a right printer is mostly a matter of looking it up in the OpenPrinting database, as well as googling for user feedback. These days both scanning and printing are no as challenging as they used to be, as long as you do some research and pick up the Linux-safe hardware. (Having said that I do not recommend Canon and Lexmark printers; HPs mentioned by SS4 and Brothers are IMHO a better choice.)

skottish · 2011-12-18 18:05:34

At least some Epson printers are supported through gutenprint and the quality is the same as under Windows. I have a Epson R1800 and it works flawlessly. It's my second Epson printer and I will continue to buy their products while the support is as good as it is.

/dev/zero · 2011-12-18 19:10:26

luxade wrote:

I do have several concerns though (no microsoft office.. aaaaah) - my biggest one being printing and scanning. It just seems like a total driver nightmare on Linux. Is it really as bad as it seems or will it just take a bit of config?

"Seems like" based on what source?

luxade wrote:

I think most of my concerns are just being a little too used to Windows.. Haven't used Linux in a few months

You will learn Linux the fastest and most deeply after you've committed yourself to using it as your main OS for more than a few weeks. I trust you've also encountered this idea that Arch Linux, in particular, is targeted more at people with a hacker mentality than some other distributions. If you're still pining for everything autoconfigured and guified like you're used to in Windows, I think you're facing a bit of an uphill battle, here.

Now for something more specifically focused on your question - how to make sure your printer/scanner works in Linux:

If you already have a printer/scanner, just google for how to get it working in Linux.
If you don't already have a printer/scanner, google for printers/scanners that work in Linux, before buying. That's how I found my HP PhotoSmart.

Last edited by /dev/zero (2011-12-18 19:43:06)

Leonid.I · 2011-12-18 22:58:51

luxade wrote:

I've played with Linux on and off for a while now (at one point even used it for a month exclusively) and am considering switching back fulltime for several reasons. I do have several concerns though (no microsoft office.. aaaaah) - my biggest one being printing and scanning. It just seems like a total driver nightmare on Linux. Is it really as bad as it seems or will it just take a bit of config? Any other things I should worry myself with before switching? I think most of my concerns are just being a little too used to Windows.. Haven't used Linux in a few months

Windows absolutely sucks hen it comes to network printers. Under cups, everything is transparent.

ewaller · 2011-12-18 23:13:20

Rather than unsupported and derogatory assertions, please make an argument and provide supporting evidence.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … ng_Systems

Last edited by ewaller (2011-12-18 23:13:51)

Leonid.I · 2011-12-19 17:03:53

ewaller wrote:

Rather than unsupported and derogatory assertions, please make an argument and provide supporting evidence.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … ng_Systems

And I stand by these assertions.

Windows (7 in my case) is certainly capable of printing over net, but when something doesn't work, it is a nightmare to troubleshoot. The simple reason is absence of a decent logging system, so when things don't work -- you can't do much more than reinstalling the driver/printer (networked hp cp3505 to be particular)... and of course google is no help either.

karabaja4 · 2011-12-19 18:16:11

/dev/zero wrote:

"Seems like" based on what source?

From my experience, it definetely seems like a nightmare. A year or so back I tried to setup Canon Pixma IP1500 with CUPS, but after I spent X hours on it it still wouldn't work. Where on Windows, it's practically a matter of plug-and-play. I don't understand why a simple job like setting up printer is so freakin painful...

bwat47 · 2011-12-19 20:33:08

I haven't had any printer issues with linux, but I've only used it with my old canon Pixma MP160 so far. From what I've heard HP's have good linux support. Generally as long as you don't get some obscure crappy printer you will probably be fine.

I recommend using system-config-printer to setup printers, its the tool fedora and ubuntu use and works quite well. I have my MP160 setup to print over samba and it works fine.

Last edited by bwat47 (2011-12-19 20:33:42)

/dev/zero · 2011-12-19 21:33:12

karabaja4 wrote:

/dev/zero wrote:
"Seems like" based on what source?
From my experience, it definetely seems like a nightmare. A year or so back I tried to setup Canon Pixma IP1500 with CUPS, but after I spent X hours on it it still wouldn't work. Where on Windows, it's practically a matter of plug-and-play. I don't understand why a simple job like setting up printer is so freakin painful...

My point wasn't to try and say that Linux users never have problems with printers. I've also had problems with a printer on Linux. In fact, I think it was a Canon Pixma as well - but maybe I'm misremembering, it was a few years ago.

The point I was trying to make was that comments such as "It just seems like a total driver nightmare on Linux" are a bit weasel-ey and trollish. Well, sure, this isn't wikipedia, but neither do we like trolls.

If any OP wants to start a thread about how bad printing in Linux is, they should lay it out straight why they think that. It's not hard to stfw to find some references, nor is it hard to lay out some anecdotes of personal bad experiences.

gm112 · 2011-12-26 00:07:37

I always have problems with printers on Linux. My Dell V505w has a 32-bit Linux driver, but of course it's somewhat of a nightmare to get it to work properly in a 64-bit install. Even when I managed to get a test page to print, it wouldn't print in color. Scanning? Not an option either. Same applies with my Uncle's printer, I couldn't switch him to Linux because of the printer problem. He refused to buy a new printer, so I was stuck with keeping him on Windows. This sounds trollish, but the "Year of the Linux Desktop" won't come or unless all of your business necessities exist with Linux on generally available printers besides HP or Lexmark(yuck). This of course mainly falls on the hardware manufacturers.. clearly the only solution is to stop buying printers that don't have support for Linux and to just support ones that do. But asking for a boycott at such a high level requires a lot of effort that would take a long time to accomplish, you know?

bohoomil · 2011-12-26 01:14:20

@gm112 -- I think a little bit of technical awareness is in most cases enough to get things up and running under Linux. Lousy hardware support is not anything Linux exclusive, and during years of my computing I collected quite a few pieces of outboard gear that either came with buggy drivers or were designed for a particular Windows release and thus could be 'scrapped' as soon as the computer got upgraded. In the long run, I find Linux safer for hardware, and so would probably many novice Linux users if they only tried to change their (shopping) habits a tiny bit.

Renan Birck · 2011-12-26 04:40:06

bohoomil wrote:

@gm112 -- I think a little bit of technical awareness is in most cases enough to get things up and running under Linux. Lousy hardware support is not anything Linux exclusive, and during years of my computing I collected quite a few pieces of outboard gear that either came with buggy drivers or were designed for a particular Windows release and thus could be 'scrapped' as soon as the computer got upgraded. In the long run, I find Linux safer for hardware, and so would probably many novice Linux users if they only tried to change their (shopping) habits a tiny bit.

Indeed. I have a 5-year-old HP all-in-one which has VERY bad drivers for Windows 7, however works flawlessly in Linux, and used to have a very old Epson printer (from the parallel-port era) which had no drivers for NT-based Windows versions, and had Linux support.

As for printing in Linux, I always have been lucky with HP, scanning/printing works well. Never tried network printing with those, only with networked printers.

spookyln · 2011-12-29 15:21:49

I'm using Cannon Pixma MP495 for my work.
Scanning and printing without any probs from laptops i have connected through wifi.
For scans i use Vuescan and Turboprint for printing.

Trilby · 2011-12-29 15:28:26

I can't comment on scanning, but printing - in my experience - follows the trend of arch in general.

I first tried to fumble through on my own and became very frustrated giving up many times only to email myself a copy of what I wanted printed and open/print the email from a Win/Mac system. Then I read the manual (CUPS wikis).

Like most of my experiences in Arch or linux in general, once I read the instructions I was amazed at how easy it was.

I can't help but wonder if all the horror stories are just from people who never took the time to RTFM. I doubt any printing is "plug-n-play", certainly not in arch. But a few minutes of reading the wikis and installing the appropriate package(s) and I'd be surprised if you had any trouble.

gm112 · 2012-01-13 08:46:35

bohoomil wrote:

@gm112 -- I think a little bit of technical awareness is in most cases enough to get things up and running under Linux. Lousy hardware support is not anything Linux exclusive, and during years of my computing I collected quite a few pieces of outboard gear that either came with buggy drivers or were designed for a particular Windows release and thus could be 'scrapped' as soon as the computer got upgraded. In the long run, I find Linux safer for hardware, and so would probably many novice Linux users if they only tried to change their (shopping) habits a tiny bit.

I would agree that technical awareness has a lot to do with it. ^^ Just, software drivers aren't my thing. Though, generally Linux supports hardware in a more friendly fashion than Windows does for sure. **points to my old laptop** Device drivers related to the laptop still receive updates. I can still use a modern Linux distro even though the laptop is from 2005. That's not bad.

As for that printer, I only could do so much with their binary driver. Hm. Perhaps I can go and try getting it to work again, but who knows..

EDIT: Update 22 Jan 2012
I just bought an HP Printer and after installing the drivers, I managed to get every feature working with no probs! Hooray!

Last edited by gm112 (2012-01-22 13:37:32)

Arch Linux

#1 2011-12-18 12:40:21

Printing/scanning on Linux

#2 2011-12-18 12:45:48

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#3 2011-12-18 16:13:58

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#4 2011-12-18 17:16:50

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#5 2011-12-18 18:05:34

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#6 2011-12-18 19:10:26

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#7 2011-12-18 22:58:51

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#8 2011-12-18 23:13:20

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#9 2011-12-19 17:03:53

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#10 2011-12-19 18:16:11

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#11 2011-12-19 20:33:08

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#12 2011-12-19 21:33:12

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#13 2011-12-26 00:07:37

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#14 2011-12-26 01:14:20

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#15 2011-12-26 04:40:06

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#16 2011-12-29 15:21:49

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#17 2011-12-29 15:28:26

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

#18 2012-01-13 08:46:35

Re: Printing/scanning on Linux

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