Debian 12. HP Laserjet Professional P1606dn
If it prints at all, it prints the top inch of the test page or just random binary. I have tried the recommended driver, the driverless driver, the Generic PCL 4/5 driver, the Generic PCL 6 driver. And probably others I am not remembering.
I am trying to print over Ethernet, but I am about to drag the printer over near my desk and print via USB.
Fortunately, I don’t have actual critical printing to do right now and I am only setting up a printer after installing Debian 12. BTW this means it is a fresh install of Debian 12 too.
I have been helpdesk support at a data center. I would not consider myself a dummy, but this is getting ridiculous. A task that should have taken all of 10 minutes has taken over 2 hours so far.
How are we ever going to get “The Year of Linux on the Desktop” if simple printing is and continues to be such a pain?
Perhaps we need an “open source” laserprinter?
I wonder if even just an open source firmware for printers could work.
Actually, I think it might take a whole “open source” company - the printer itself is sold assembled at a profit (Much more expensive than printers today) but it can be assembled from available plans and off-the-shelf parts. The control inside the computer would probably be something a lot like a Raspberry Pi.
The ink is provided at the actual cost, and the formula for the ink is available.
The firmware is downloaded from the host computer on printer power-up, so that can be fully open source- allowing the user to correct or add functionality. Perhaps driven by a high-level “printer language” that would make writing printer firmware easy to understand and update.