Printers are pretty plug’n’play these days, at least until something technical goes wrong. Getting exactly what you want on paper can be pretty tough, though. I wrote an entire printing stack from scratch for an embedded system, but that was for a very specific set of models from a single manufacturer. It actually worked every time, especially when there were errors and warnings, but it took actual effort.
Seriously, one of the best ways to fix printer issues with windows. Is to buy a cheap raspberry pi zero or similar. And stick it in between as a print server. It solves so many random issues for both bad printer, firmwears and fucky windows behaviors
My hp printer has worked perfectly and reliably with CUPS for years now. Just turn it on and print, works every time.
Open source print drivers, baby! I still hate CUPS though.
I don’t own a Mac outside of my work laptop. Like OP said in another reply, it’s likely because vendors pre-configure the system to work out of the box on Mac OS.
It’s just my anecdotal experience but writing off my comment as me justifying a purchase (that I haven’t made) is just silly and lazy discussion
It’s just my anecdotal experience but writing off my comment as me justifying a purchase (that I haven’t made) is just silly and lazy discussion
Somebody made that purchase, though. dismissing the cost point for apple products because you didn’t personally fork over is… amusing. Also, most vendors configure for windows, aka the OS with the largest market share of desktop computing devices. Some vendors (like epson), who cater to photography or graphic design will also ensure it works in Mac, but as noted elsewhere, the drivers for the printers in MacOS and linux are the same- CUPS. if printer compatibility is what you were looking for, you got taken for a ride. (this is not to say there aren’t valid reasons for living in Apple’s walled garden…there are… it’s just printer hardware isn’t one of them)
I learned that the CUPS config on Mac, at least as of about a year ago, was set to save a copy of everything ever printed to an obscure directory on the machine. Was discussed in relation to setting up a secure encryption scheme where you print out your keys, wouldn’t want something like that just hanging out for any malware to come gobble up.
It used zeroconf/bonjur out of the box when no one else used it (or had to do some serious configs in order to get it working), that’s why. And, of course, since it’s the second most used OS other than Windows, printer manufacturers configured avahi/zeroconf/bonjur out of the box on their printers.
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