this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2025
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My elderly parents got the "your computer cannot be upgraded" and my somewhat tech-litterate mom asked me to move them to Linux.
Microsoft should've realised at some point that the only thing most people need today is a computer that can run a web browser and connect to a printer.
I cannot the life of me get my Linux laptop to use my fucking Canon WiFi printer. It detects the printer, says it's connected, but it simply will not send a print job to it. Windows, iOS and android all use it just fine...but this fucking Linux machine just won't, I've spent hours fiddling with drivers and nothing works, it's infuriating!
Let me tell you:
I've been using Linux exclusively since ~2010 and moved my mum over back when XP got canned. Printers always have been and still are the bane of my existence. From what I know from other people working in IT printers are always bad, however of course the driver support situation in Linux is so much worse. My mum used to have a Samsung mfp that would print in Linux (most of the time) but I could not for the life of me figure out how to get it to scan reliably. In the end I've set her up with a dual boot with a simple "click here to switch to Windows" button so she could scan in there (saving the scans to a NAS)
From my experience printers mostly either work or don't work in Linux. If you are looking for a new printer I've only had food experiences with Brother. If you already have a printer and it's not working right I can recommend sxouring through forums for that one wisdom of the ancients that can help (and possibly sacrificing a goat)
I bow also have a Canon printer (it was a gift) and with the official Linux drivers it worked for years. Recently it just wouldn't print from Linux anymore till I switched the drivers to the generic "Guteprint" now it's printing fine again ...
Tl;dr: printers are evil and Linux drivers are sometimes making them worse