Linux

February 13, 2009

So, my parents bought this brand new multifunction uber-printer that can do anything, including making coffee. Great stuff.

I took their old printer home with me, because I don’t have one and was on the verge of buying one anyway. This is when I entered the twilight zone.

The HP Deskjet 840c has no Vista drivers. HP doesn’t make them. I need my Linux machine to print.

And now the world will end.

Linux, Computing, Microsoft |

9 Messages »

  1. This says that it works out of the box. Googling it around, most people say it works.

    Comment by Eugenia — February 13, 2009 @ 8:07 pm

  2. Well, strange things can happen. Recently I had to use a samsung multifunction printer (scx55..something) under linux, and my head started to ache days before it, since I expected many hours of pain. Well, it turned out the support page had downloadable, and working (!) driver, and wait, it had a graphical installer. When I started to print it felt so weird, I can’t even start to describe it :)))

    Comment by l3v1 — February 13, 2009 @ 8:09 pm

  3. Eugenia: but it doesn’t :). Several people have also said the default driver doesn’t work. I’m not alone.

    Comment by Administrator — February 13, 2009 @ 8:27 pm

  4. I would suggest you retry, and this time use a different usb port.

    Comment by Eugenia — February 13, 2009 @ 8:32 pm

  5. Do not use USB hubs btw, I had a problem with them and my printers with Vista. Try directly.

    Comment by Eugenia — February 13, 2009 @ 8:41 pm

  6. You have just seen the future ;)

    PS Why should you retry? Doing the hub/no hub, driver uninstall/install, restore point, reg hack dance with Vista? Windows is awesome, unless it breaks. Thing is it very often does. Fixing and pinpointing problems in Windows is pure suck and every knows it.
    Linux sure isn’t perfect yet, but as a whole it improves very steadily. And you know where to look and who to talk to if something breaks.
    Windows drivers are meant to die at some point. Companies want you to buy new stuff, not use stuff you already have. New OS/Computer = new hardware. Shareholder value > customer satisfaction. Only open source prevents that from happening.

    Comment by Kragil — February 13, 2009 @ 11:57 pm

  7. Yup, printers on Linux = teh awesome. It has long since been that way.

    Plugged in the 840c, everything was detected and setup without ever having to touch a thing. Go CUPS :).

    Comment by Administrator — February 14, 2009 @ 12:02 am

  8. Same here, plug in my HP OfficeJet 5610 and it all works, Ubuntu configured the printer and The GIMP handles the scanner perfectly via xsane.

    Comment by John S. — February 14, 2009 @ 4:33 am

  9. HP have always had wonderful printer support under Linux and have sponsored native drivers for as long as I’ve used Linux.

    Comment by iphitus — February 17, 2009 @ 12:17 am

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