Driver-Free Printing Comes To Ubuntu 17.04, AirPrint Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Driver-Free Printing Comes To Ubuntu 17.04, AirPrint Support

With the latest "Zesty" development packages for Ubuntu 17.04, there is initial support for driver-less network printer support...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-17.04-Driver-Less-Print

[cjcox]

One thing I want is a CUPS based Airprint gateway. Oh yes, there are docs for CUPS (and I recommend you run the latest), and I have it running at my office, but it simply isn't reliable at all.

[GraysonPeddie]

So what's the latest version I should upgrade to in Arch Linux? What about those who use Fedora 25?

(Did get a "server abort" message. Weird.)

[schmidtbag]

There are a few printers out there where Linux drivers exist but are finicky and can be a real PITA to set up. For such printers, I've found it was much easier to set up a single PC as a printer server and then use something like Google Cloud Print to share the printer in a way that doesn't require remote PCs to install the drivers. To my understanding, this limits which applications you can print from, but it can make life easier. CUPS comes with a web-based UI, which you can always use if you need to tweak the printer for your settings without accessing the server. As long as your printer doesn't use closed-source drivers, you can usually get away with using some cheap ARM board (like a Raspberry Pi) to get this working.

[Creak]

So they've made a driver in CUPS that is called "driver-free/less". I don't see how they thought this name was a good idea...

Anyhow, the status of printers compatibility is quite crappy on Linux, I hadn't bought a printer for more than 10 years now. The two last times I tried to connect a Linux to a printer (2013 and 2016, with different printers and different distro), it was a huge failure. So anything that can improve this is welcome indeed!

[higuita]

I have a driverless printer for more than 10 years ... it is a postscript printer! work perfectly always!!

cheap printers are always junk, you pay on support or in toners/ink and hardware is always failing
a little more expensive printer will support more features and many times have a lot cheaper (or bigger capacity for the same price) consumers

[F.Ultra]

So they've made a driver in CUPS that is called "driver-free/less". I don't see how they thought this name was a good idea...

Anyhow, the status of printers compatibility is quite crappy on Linux, I hadn't bought a printer for more than 10 years now. The two last times I tried to connect a Linux to a printer (2013 and 2016, with different printers and different distro), it was a huge failure. So anything that can improve this is welcome indeed!

Sad to hear, for me it has been the complete opposite, I have connected with (mostly HP and Brother) printers for 15 years with more or less plug'n' play experience.

[DrYak]

Same as F.Ultra, nearly every single printer I've been using has been flawless...
...because generally I tend to use networked postscript printers (mostly HP) :
- It speaks a pretty standard language that is already supported by cups without needing 3rd party drivers.
- It uses a connection that is already supported by cups (mostly IPP, some also support LPD) and doesn't require fiddling with non standard USB drivers (why use a class driver when you can go creative ?).

In fact, it came to me as a surprise that the latest multi-function my parents bought at their place (Canon i-Sensys MF8550Cdw) is NOT PostScript compliant.
- It has some shitty partly closed source drivers provided by Canon (used to speak their proprietary UFR-II language) that might get working with some hacks
- But the printers speaks perfectly well PCL, so the PCL driver (pxlcolor) of Cups works as well.
But still, I was surprised.

[starshipeleven]

Creak HP printers have always had flawless (windows-like) experience on Linux overall, they also provide an opensourced GUI printer management interface (hplip) which is useful if your printer isn't a multifunction so it does not offer the same info/controls on a local webpage (like routers). Their supported printer list on linux is huge, you can pretty much take a random HP printer and it will work fine.
Also scanners of multifunction printers work fine.

Other manufacturers of company-grade printers also have decent support (like Brother).

Most other manufacturers, especially in the consumer market... it's a crapshoot.

In general, when you buy hardware for linux ALWAYS check compatibility first.

[Creak]

3 months ago I tried with Fedora 24 and an hp laserjet p1006... didn't work. I didn't go any further since I expected this kind of result. Maybe there is a package I need to install, but at some point, I'd like this kind of devices to work as plug'n'play.