Saturday, November 18, 2017

Linux and the Cups Printing System

If there is one horrible thing about Linux it's the relationship with peripherals, such as printers.  All this is handled through Cups.  Although I am amazed at how many printers they can do, the whole thing regularly screws up.

So, if you want to go all Linux, get a generic Postscript network printer.  Those things always work.  I, however, have an old Phaser 6125n which is generally fantastic, and you can put in really cheap knock-off toner cartridges.  I'm sure that modern printers have all sorts of gimmicks that preserve their income from very expensive toner.

Nevertheless, this printer has a bizarre protocol, super secret, and there is only a 32 bit driver available.  Following my instructions that I laid out earlier, you can make it work, but it's horrible. 

Reading things for the last 10 years, I have found out that Cups regularly bombs out when it is upgraded.  That happened to me, and my printer didn't work with my main machine.  I tried endless things, but the main conclusion is that cups is busted in this version, but may work in the next. 

However, I kept the other machine at another release, and it still works.  You can use a shared printer and it works for all machines.  The lesson is to never upgrade all your machines at once.

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