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?

  • taladarEnglish
    351·
    1 year ago

    In my experience printing has always been pain on all operating systems, especially Windows.

    The fact that you literally need to open up about half of all possible TCP and UDP ports in a firewall just to get all printing protocols over the network to work at all and that the vendors try to prevent you from using third party ink, and other consumables is good evidence that it is more the printer vendors fault than anyone else’s.

        • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneOP
          2·
          1 year ago

          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.

            • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneOP
              2·
              1 year ago

              But first, you will need to discover how to pry the existing firmware off so many different kinds of printers. This, unfortunately, is probably a DMCA violation (bypassing a security measure, for example, the code that forces one to use only ‘approved’ ink supplies)

    • BaldProphet@kbin.social
      51·
      1 year ago

      I just did a test with my Brother printer on Windows. I saw one port opened for the print protocol and four or five for various name service protocols (because I have a homelab and have screwed around with DNS a little too much, apparently). If you’re opening half of all possible TCP and UDP ports to get the printing protocol to work, you’re doing something wrong.

      • taladarEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        I said “for all print protocols”, as in all the ones network printers have to support to get all possible clients to work.

        • BaldProphet@kbin.social
          11·
          1 year ago

          But why would you need to get all possible clients to work? Just get the ones that are actually on your network working. And don’t open your Internet-facing firewall unless for some bizarre reason you have to print from over the Internet (can’t really see a critical use case for this except for outliers).

          Unless you’re running a web cafe or something and have to support random laptops that people bring in. At that point security is out the window anyway because who knows what will be going on your network.

          • taladar
            3·
            1 year ago

            The point was that the protocols are badly designed and I was talking about firewalls between subnets.

          • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneOP
            1·
            1 year ago

            If you have to print from a location away from your network ( like on a business trip ) us tailscale!

  • qwesx@kbin.social
    26·
    1 year ago

    You’re supposed to use hplip for HP printers. There’s a Debian package for it in the main repositories.
    edit: You can look up the printers and supported features with hplip here. Looks like your printer is perfectly supported (as long as you let hplip’s tray program install their proprietary driver plugin).

    • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneOP
      6·
      1 year ago

      I will try that. Thanks! I am not sure what features I don’t get to use because of the USB/Generic PCL printer setup I have now.

      • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneOP
        4·
        1 year ago

        That was worse - the test page failed with “filter failed”, went back to “Generic PCL Laser Printer”, and was able to print a full Debian test page again.

        • qwesx@kbin.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          Have you installed the plugin within hplip, or rather, the hplip-GUI program? Have you removed the old printer from CUPS before trying?

          • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneOP
            1·
            1 year ago

            I don’t really understand the CUPS web interface at localhost:[cups port] but I am removing the printer from the control panel and ensuring it disappeared over a reboot. I installed the hplip package using apt. I don’t know if it brought a GUI along with it. I have been interacting with things using the settings app.

            • qwesx@kbin.social
              2·
              1 year ago

              What settings app? hp-toolbox is the program to use (which might in your applications menu as “HP Device Manager”), alternatively hp-setup to set it up from the CLI.

        • priapus
          1·
          1 year ago

          Did you use hplip over USB or Ethernet? It might not be meant for use over USB.

  • words_number@programming.dev
    11·
    1 year ago

    Rage against the machine never specified what kind of machine they meant. Now we know it was probably a printer.

    Sorry, I know this is not helping, but I love that joke :D

  • merthyr1831@lemmy.world
    6·
    1 year ago

    I know this doesn’t help, but my linux experience has been good regarding printers. Much easier than Windows ever was. Probably just luck tho

  • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneOP
    61·
    1 year ago

    Update = Connecting the printer via USB gave better results. I would rather talk to it via the existing ethernet, but I did have a long USB cable so at least I don’t have to give up half my desk. The printer is still connected to the network too. perhaps my wife can use it from windows.

    At least for now I can print.

  • owatnext@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’ve always just sent the docs to my phone over bluetooth and then printed from my Android phone. I rarely get printing to work on Linux.

  • Johannes Jacobs@lemmy.jhjacobs.nl
    1·
    1 year ago

    To be fair, printing on Windows isnt all roses and sunshine either :) Printing in itself is an issue. I remember how happy i felt when the big tech started talking about the paperless office and all…

    I’m still waiting, and praying for that day to come :)

  • priapus
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have never had an issue printing to my HP printer, or the many other HP, Canon, and Brother printers I have used from my Linux device. CUPS handles all of them exceptionally. On the other hand, Windows machines I’ve used need HP Smart for anything HP, and Macs can never correctly print to Canons.

  • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have a network connected hp officejet. If you want I can check my settings and drivers in CUPS tomorrow so you can compare. It has been working with several computers for quite a long time now and it gets auto discovered by windows and Linux.

    I use ink from a 3rd party seller and it’s relatively nag free since it’s pretty old. It warns about non authentic ink, but then works just fine.