Why is installing a printer still such a PITA
 

I've been using Linux since before 2000.

In my experience printer installation has always been and remains flaky.

Why?

Again today, my LinuxMint client notebook dropped the connection to the Brother Laser printer connected to my Ubuntu 22.04 server. It was working yesterday.

RDP'ing into the server all seems well with the server & printer.

OK, what to do? I know, drop the printer on the server and re-install. Bingo, now the client PC sees it again.

Rinse, wash, repeat....

</sigh>

PS The above is rhetorical. I feel better now.

Believe me, "PITA printer installation" is not unique to Linux ... :D

I'm not so sure- daughter with her fruity computer comes in, and bingo, her PC almost instantly and automatically connects to the Laser on the Ubuntu Server.

I don't run windows any more so can't say how it would cope.

But, yeah, I know what you mean. I think

I have no personal experience with Brother printers, so I can't comment on this particular situation, but I think a lot of boils down to the fact that some printer manufacturers provide excellent Linux support and others do not.

In many ways linux support is an afterthought...

While not perfect Brother does provide decent support and I have owned several of their Printers. I always prefer a laser network printer over USB and their little more costly units typically support PCL so even without installing the exact driver I could at least print using a generic configuration. Since you can share a printer over cups I can print from any of my linux computers regardless.

Back in the old days you basically only had support for Postscript or PCL, then eventually other printers. Now with ipp everywhere becoming the defacto standard we might be going back in the other direction. With Michael Sweet being the prime cups developer we follow where he goes... Admittedly it probably has become a maintenance nightmare. Rant over

There is a bunch of software that runs to make it almost automatic and once it works I've never had a problem...

I gave up on printers years ago. If I should need to print something (rare) I take the file elsewhere (kiosk, etc). HP is pretty good with support but even still - ink is expensive, dries out, and gets clogged. For how little I print I can't justify the headache.

Running KUbuntu LTS and 23.10. Saturday I got a new Brother Color Laser printer. Plugged into the network (wired). All machines saw it just fine. Personally I've been 'really' impressed with Linux printer support. Have two other Brother printers that came on-line the same way. They were just 'there' ready for use. All hard wired of course, don't use wifi for my network printers. No drivers to install... just 'there'.

As above we use our printers in spurts. Ink tends to dry, and have to 'clean' the heads almost every time we use the Brother Tank printer... So we decided on getting the Laser which doesn't have this problem. Photo printing with the new Laser printer seems 'ok' for our use. We have a black only Brother laser printer for a long time and have only replaced the toner once. Never a problem with it. Hence try the color Laser and move away from ink jet.

Pretty sure most linux distros use the same thing as Apple's OS, CUPS.

edit: removed incorrect info, thought apple designed it in the first place; they just bought the copyright to it.

History of cups

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mich...t_(programmer))

I guess is basically the same thing as the other article enigma9o7 posted but it was never written by Apple in the first place.

One reason it's awkward is that every company writes a windows driver but nobody writes a linux driver. I use HP because they talk Postscript, and Laser mono to avoid getting ripped off for inkjet refills. They're trying to kill that trade currently.

Somebody does! As I said above, my Brother printers no longer need the manufacturer Brother 'driver'. The Linux system just seems to know now. Same with my dad's little 'black only' Canon laser printer when I upgraded his laptop recently. No need to go to manufacturer website anymore and follow the steps to install. It's been great. Something has changed for the better in the Linux printing world. That said, I haven't used HP printers in years.

The ONLY reason I use HP is that they use Postscript. No driver needed. Just a ppd.

With IPP everywhere and driverless printing, printers should be automatically detected and configured with most distributions. With cups version 3 just on the horizon PPDs and backends are going to become history. Older printers maybe a problem.

https://www.pwg.org/printers/

While things are getting better, I'm not holding my breath. Have been dealing with printers since the early 80's, and there is one thing that still holds true: it was awful then, and just as awful now. Windows/Mac/Linux/whatever...all bad. The only advantage I can see with Mac/Windows is a 'centralized' system of shoving things out. Discover a printer, and the driver is downloaded/installed in the background, but that still doesn't mean it's going to WORK correctly. And any updates can still cause issues.

Have never had one work well, from a cheap inkjet to a huge beast that could print thousands of pages per minute. All junk.

I mostly agree. I don't print much but I was very fond of my HP LJ4s. I bought one new and one used and never had problems. The one I bought new was ~25 years old when the fuser burned out and the other one was fried when my house was hit by lighting. The Brother printers I purchase also support PCL so they are also usable without installing Brothers drivers. I do have a custom backend for a virtual printer so I am not thrilled that I have to find a workaround.