Laser printers with linux drivers

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Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by Kraatz » Wed Mar 04, 2020 9:46 am

Hi all:
I’ve been using Mint for years and really like it. HOWEVER, one ongoing conundrum are printer drivers. I use a black only laser printer- not color.
My printer is a simple Canon LPB 6030w. I’m using MInt 19.3 and I can’t believe there’s still, apparently, no driver for it. OK, I realize I may have to spring for another laser printer, but which one will run on Mint? I realize this is basically a Linux problem and not a Mint problem but I’m going to ask anyway.
Some of you must have the same problem.

Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.

absque fenestris Level 12
Posts: 4110 Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2016 8:42 pm Location: Confoederatio Helvetica

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by absque fenestris » Wed Mar 04, 2020 10:05 am

[Linux] UFRII LT Printer Driver Ver.5.00
File version: V5.00 Release date: 07 August 2019
This software is a UFRII LT printer driver for Canon LBP printers.
To use this software, please read the online manual before installing the driver.

If using this driver, the [MF/LBP Network Setup Tool] can be used to configure the initial network connection settings.
Download the [MF/LBP Network Setup Tool] from the Web site.
Operating system(s)
Linux (32-bit)Linux (64-bit)

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by erikjan » Wed Mar 04, 2020 10:12 am

you will find your printer driver here:

Linux Mint is an excellent distro, but may not be fully up to date with printer drivers. I bought my printers (a laserprinter and an inkjet printer for pictures) after having verified that the maker supports Linux. Canon clearly is one of them.

brian_p Level 9
Posts: 2648 Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:20 am Location: UK

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by brian_p » Wed Mar 04, 2020 10:25 am

It would be highly unusual for a modern network-capable printer not to offer an AirPrint facility. Mint doesn’t have drivers for any of them!

brian_p Level 9
Posts: 2648 Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:20 am Location: UK

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by brian_p » Wed Mar 04, 2020 10:27 am

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by llr51 » Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:33 pm

Since printing is based on Apple CUPS and every printer maker wants to sell to Apple Users almost every modern printer has Linux drivers.
You just have to go to their website and get the rpm for your new printer.
If the printer box says MacOS — you can bet there are Linux drivers as the Mac uses CUPS and so does Linux.
If your printer is older — there might not be new drivers for it — just like Windows 10 made many printers obsolete with no drivers for 10.

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by llr51 » Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:35 pm

It is more likely that the printer drivers are copyrighted and cannot be distributed with Linux — that is why you have to get them from the printer makers website.

stephanieswitzer Level 4
Posts: 235 Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:49 pm Location: Ontario

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by stephanieswitzer » Thu Mar 05, 2020 9:46 am

I have an HP Colour Laserjet Pro M254dw, and Mint detected it without any problems and I’ve never had any problems using this printer with Mint since I bought it. The printer is connected to my Home Wifi so my macOS, iOS, and Linux Mint 19.3 devices can all print to it. Also the setup of the printer under Mint 19.3 went with out any problems.

Mac-Mini running Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon, Intel© Core™ i5-2415M CPU @ 2.30GHz
MacBookPro9,2 running Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.3 Intel Core i5-3210M CPU @ 3.20GHz
System76 Galago Pro 4, running Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.3 Intel i5-1021 CPU @ 4.2 Ghz

AZgl1800 Level 19
Posts: 9390 Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 3:20 am Location: Oklahoma where the wind comes Sweeping down the Plains Contact:

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by AZgl1800 » Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:16 am

I have an Epson ET-2550 which was already on the WiFi signal before I installed 19.3 Cinnamon.

I got a huge surprise when the install of 19.3 found the printer, and made it the default immediately.
I have a Samsung black ink laser printer, and a 15 year old Lexmark, all on WiFi.

LM21.2 Victoria Cinnamon ASUS FX705GM | Donate to Mint https://www.patreon.com/linux_mint

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by PaulNYC » Wed Mar 11, 2020 3:27 pm

Kraatz wrote: ⤴ Wed Mar 04, 2020 9:46 am Hi all:
I’ve been using Mint for years and really like it. HOWEVER, one ongoing conundrum are printer drivers. I use a black only laser printer- not color.
My printer is a simple Canon LPB 6030w. I’m using MInt 19.3 and I can’t believe there’s still, apparently, no driver for it. OK, I realize I may have to spring for another laser printer, but which one will run on Mint? I realize this is basically a Linux problem and not a Mint problem but I’m going to ask anyway.
Some of you must have the same problem.

I have been having a similar issue getting my LBP6000 to work with Mint 19.3. I cannot get the Canon drivers to play nice with my PC.

I saw one of the comments below mentioned rpm packages. Is that what we should be using instead of the debian packages?

AZgl1800 Level 19
Posts: 9390 Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 3:20 am Location: Oklahoma where the wind comes Sweeping down the Plains Contact:

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by AZgl1800 » Wed Mar 11, 2020 6:00 pm

llr51 wrote: ⤴ Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:33 pm Since printing is based on Apple CUPS and every printer maker wants to sell to Apple Users almost every modern printer has Linux drivers.
You just have to go to their website and get the rpm for your new printer.
If the printer box says MacOS — you can bet there are Linux drivers as the Mac uses CUPS and so does Linux.
If your printer is older — there might not be new drivers for it — just like Windows 10 made many printers obsolete with no drivers for 10.

I installed a 15 year old Lexmark printer with the OEM Vista software on Win10 by telling it to make it «Compatible».
worked slicker than the door knob.

LM21.2 Victoria Cinnamon ASUS FX705GM | Donate to Mint https://www.patreon.com/linux_mint

AZgl1800 Level 19
Posts: 9390 Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 3:20 am Location: Oklahoma where the wind comes Sweeping down the Plains Contact:

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by AZgl1800 » Wed Mar 11, 2020 6:11 pm

• Right click on the program’s shortcut, .exe file, or installation file.
  Click on Properties.
  Click on the Compatibility tab.
  Check the Run this program in compatibility mode for box

LM21.2 Victoria Cinnamon ASUS FX705GM | Donate to Mint https://www.patreon.com/linux_mint

AndyMH Level 20
Posts: 12138 Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2016 5:23 pm Location: Wiltshire

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by AndyMH » Wed Mar 11, 2020 6:34 pm

PaulNYC wrote: ⤴ Wed Mar 11, 2020 3:27 pm I saw one of the comments below mentioned rpm packages. Is that what we should be using instead of the debian packages?

RPM is a package distribution for Red Hat Linux (and a few others). For LM you want deb files (deb = debian = ubuntu = LM, and all other flavours of linux based on ubuntu).

There is software to convert an rpm to a deb, the few times I’ve tried, it failed.

Thinkcentre M720Q — LM21.1 cinnamon, 4 x T430 — LM20.3 cinnamon, Homebrew desktop i5-8400+GTX1080 Cinnamon 19.0

Re: Which laser printer has drivers for Linux

Post by GuyLeclair » Fri Jun 05, 2020 6:24 pm

Kraatz wrote: ⤴ Wed Mar 04, 2020 9:46 am My printer is a simple Canon LPB 6030w. I’m using MInt 19.3 and I can’t believe there’s still, apparently, no driver for it. OK, I realize I may have to spring for another laser printer, but which one will run on Mint?

Without a doubt: go for an HP printer. I don’t think any other printer manufacturer supports Linux as much as HP. I’m truly not fond of the HP brand for their PCs, but I have to admit their printers support is excellent. Go check their HPLIP (Linux Image Printing) web site, you’ll be impressed to see how many HP printers are supported on Linux (at least 80% of all HP printer models): https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imag . ices/index

Mine is an HP LaserJet Pro M118dw, it works well. Even printing via WiFi — without any preliminary driver configuration. I just struggled a bit with image printing, the result was really not dark enough. until I understood the Eco mode was the cause. Disabling this mode solved the issue. To be honest, this HP model is best at text printing, not image printing. This is something I knew before my purchase by reading users comments (printer usually tested on Windows), but I didn’t buy a B&W laser printer to print images, so this model perfectly suits my needs. And its printing speed is awesome.

I’m not surprised you had problems with a Canon printer, I also struggled for a long time in the past to try to get something out of an old Laser Shot LBP (12 years old ^^) and never succeeded. There was still a Linux driver available for download, but for older Linux distributions (Ubuntu 14.04 and older versions), and it seemed impossible to get it to work nowadays. In all cases, purchasing a Canon printer to use on Linux is quite a bet! Either it’s supported out of the box, or you’ll struggle with no guarantee of success. Exactly what you experienced unfortunately.

AZgl1800 Level 19
Posts: 9390 Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 3:20 am Location: Oklahoma where the wind comes Sweeping down the Plains Contact:

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