I have been very impressed lately by the ease with which I have been able to install and use 3 different printing devices on my Linux (Ubuntu) laptop. Years ago I struggled with compatibility lists and struggled to identify devices that had good support under Linux. Mostly it was hit and miss.
A couple of years ago I installed an HP2605DTN colour laser printer on my office network. The process was totally painless and I have all the normal options on the print menus in OpenOffice.org and other GUI Linux apps.
When I needed a fax machine last year I picked up an display model HP4300 fax/scanner/printer for under NZ$100 including a new ink cartridge. Plugged it into my USB port and it was correctly identified immediately and just worked. Printing and scanning plug & play. I haven't tried printing to the fax function yet.
A couple of weeks ago I dropped by a friends house and as I was leaving he pointed to an Epson R350 photo printer, said he was dumping it as he had upgraded, and did I want it. Not having a decent photo printer I put it under my arm, took it home and plugged it into my PC. Again it just worked. All the right paper and colour options on application menus in the right places. I am really impressed with the photos it prints on decent paper. I may be less impressed when I find out how long ink cartridges last but that is not a problem Ubuntu can solve for me.
What I am really happy about is that I didn't need any of the various driver disks for XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Mac that came with the devices I bought. Everything has just worked.
That is how things should be. Thanks Ubuntu.
I seldom bother with the hardware compatibility lists now except when I find things like the whizzy 3G card in my new(ish) netbook that needed special attention to get it working reliably (no thanks to HP) and whose GPS functionality is still an undocumented black hole.
