Would my printers work on Manjaro OS?

I have tried four other linux distros but I find that none of my printers (Brother HL-5050, Hp Lazerjet 3380, Epson Lq1070 Dot Matrix Printer) work with these linux operating systems. But what about Manjaro? Would my printers work or would I have to switch back to Windows? Or what do I have to do to get the printers to work. Even with a generic driver, the printers do not work at all. The linux distros I have tried are Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Kubuntu and Zorin,. Does anyone know which linux distro would work with my printers?

It doesn’t usually depend on the Linux distro. Either there is Linux support for a printer model or not. Check your models in this website Printer List | OpenPrinting - The Linux Foundation

This one is said to work perfectly https://www.openprinting.org/printer/Brother/Brother-HL-5050
For my Brother printer I only need to provide a PPD file, like described here:

You can also just use the CUPS web interface for printer setup and configuration. It’s a bit less user-friendly, but it should be available on every single Linux distribution. Open a web browser, plug localhost:631 into its address bar, and press Enter. Click over to “Administration” and use the “Add Printer” link to add a printer via the web interface. You’ll be asked for a password. Enter your Linux user account’s username and password. For some Linux distributions, you may need to use the username “root” and the root password.

4 Likes

What he ( @eugen-b ) said.
I just looked up the Brother printer only, not the other ones,
and it is supported and should work.

I find it suprising For the HP not to work in cups, They are quite good with support for cups often coming before Windows drivers during development as it is then used on MAC and even used towards Android developement… If you install hpcups (hplip), gutenprint then you can generally get any HP printer working in order of Precedence: gutenprint (I find it tends to work better then HPcups), hpcups, then cups itself. Just install guttenprint (cups will get pulled up)

sudo pacman -Sy  hplip gutenprint

Dont forget to enable printing services:

sudo systemctl enable --now cups.service
sudo systemctl enable --now cups.socket
sudo systemctl enable --now cups.path

if your printer is USB then plug it in and it will set itself up, if its a network printer then localhost:631 would work. I find that Brother printers sometimes need Foomatic make sure you get the nonfree version (Brother isnt as opensource friendly as HP on printers). I am not sure how it is licenced in USA (I have been in anti-patent protest that with help of Polish representants saved EU from USA-like software patents)
I find Epson the only problem here. and you may have to see instructions specific to epson.

As @eugen-b said, you can use CUPS web interface to manage your connected printers as long as your printers support CUPS architecture.

Also, as @Zlodej said, several printer companies, like HP, have provided its printer products a support for CUPS. As long as any printer manufacturers support CUPS, you can use that printer in any GNU/Linux distro by installing CUPS printer server at that distro.

Regarding how user friendliness, it’s up to the distro if they integrate CUPS to the desktop environment or not (like having CUPS installed by default and the interface to CUPS is provided in “settings” or some sort rather than by localhost:631). For me, Manjaro is already user friendly to manage printer; you can manage printer by GUI in addition to localhost:631.

Moreover, as @Zlodej said, some companies do, make it hard to use their own printer by their own proprietary driver that needs to be installed usually targeted only for Windows OS. For this printer, it’s almost impossible to use in any GNU/Linux distro.

Below is a further explanation of using CUPS in Manjaro:

You could create a updateable live manjaro usb stick to test this. (with ALMA)
This way you don´t have to change your disks without knowing.

Almost everyone here in the forum has one or the other printer, and uses it. If you have 3 printers, chances are good that at least 2 of 3 work out of the box with cups. But you may to have to invest some time to get it running smooth.

Give it a try :man_mechanic:

I disagree with @andreas85
Unnecessary double work. I dont see much chance for HP one not to work with cups/hplip and too much work for an experiment may demotivate beginners, while once the OS is installed person is far more likely to do the steps getting the beautiful world of wonder Linux (/Narnia) work…