Linux Mint Natively: 4-n-1 Printer Won't Work: Pls Advise

Page 1 of 1 [ 4 posts ] 

slave
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 28 Feb 2012
Age: 113
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,420
Location: Dystopia Planetia

29 Sep 2016, 4:36 pm

Hi everyone.

Switched from Win 7 b/c of the Win10 coercion BS to run Linux Mint natively.

Exceedingly happy with same, but my 4-n-1 does not work at all.


I have read Linux Mint, Canon and other Linux-user sites and YT to attempt to solve the issue independently. Problem is they disagree and some of the proposed work-arounds(for Ubuntu NOT Mint) are quite complex for this N00b.

Most sources say that only printer can be used, NOT the scanner/fax/pcopier functions.

No one suggests using a Windows emulator, which surprised me a lot actually. :?


Anyway, I'm lost/in over my head :oops: ......I would be grateful for our communities considerable expertise.

Thanks in advance :D



fourcandles
Raven
Raven

Joined: 28 Sep 2016
Gender: Male
Posts: 102

30 Sep 2016, 1:56 pm

Hi

I switched to Linux Mint about a year ago because of the Windows 10 "telemetry" thing. I haven't even bothered trying to get Linux working with my printer though. It was way too much hassle when I tried it years ago, and it sounds like things haven't improved much since then.

Instead, I've got a dual partition on my laptop, with Windows 7 on one partition (no longer set up to connect to the internet), and Linux Mint on the other, which I use as my main OS for browsing, etc. If I want to print something I just mount my Windows partition under Linux via Nemo (the Linux Mint equivalent of Windows Explorer), copy the file over, then log out, log into Windows, and print from there.

Setting up a dual partition is easy with Linux Mint. You just have to re-install Windows, then re-install Linux Mint. The Linux Mint installer will notice that you've got Windows installed and ask you if you want to install Linux alongside it. It then takes care of resizing the Windows partition, etc.

Just one very important point though. If you do decide to go down the dual partition route, make sure you take a backup copy of all your data first, as re-installing Windows will completely overwrite your Linux Mint installation, including all your data.

Hope that helps.



Lantylam
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 1 Jul 2016
Age: 67
Gender: Male
Posts: 756

30 Sep 2016, 2:51 pm

I've left my HP printer/scanner hooked up to an old (offline) XP computer and transfer documents to/from Linux Mint via a USB stick. Haven't tried to connect Mint directly to the printer (yet). I suspect the printer would work but not the scanner, as it uses a HP (Windows based) application to do the scanning. Next time I buy a printer/scanner it probably won't be a HP one for two reasons: 1. The HP ink scam where they block you from using third party cartridges forcing you to use their expensive ones and 2. I'll look for one that is known to be compatible with Linux.



Adamantium
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2013
Age: 1026
Gender: Female
Posts: 5,863
Location: Erehwon

01 Oct 2016, 9:49 am

Perhaps this will help:
http://www.howtogeek.com/215235/how-to- ... -on-linux/

Sadly, though:

Quote:
But some printers just aren’t supported and won’t work. Some printers may work, but not very well. Other printers may require proprietary drivers provided by their manufacturer, and those drivers can often be a headache to install — or they may not install at all on newer Linux distributions as they haven’t been maintained and updated over the years.


If it's an HP printer, you may be able to get some info like this:
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/mo ... eries.html

Some multifunction printers like the HP Envy now are "web" devices, which in practice means they have an email address and will print docs sent to that address.

Good luck.


_________________
Don't believe the gender note under my avatar. A WP bug means I can't fix it.