Computer Help Blog

If you are buying a new printer to use with Linux, look for one that supports PostScript. PostScript is the preferred format for Linux and Unix printing and has been around for many years. Every major word and image processing application that runs on Linux or Unix systems supports PostScript printing.

If you get a PostScript printer and it is not explicitly shown in the list of supported printers, simply select the PostScript filter when you install the printer locally. No special drivers are needed. Your next best choice is to choose a printer that supports PCL. In either case, make sure than the PostScript or PCL is implemented in the printer hardware and not in the Windows driver.

When selecting a printer, avoid those that are referred to as Winprinters. These printers use nonstandard printing interfaces. Support for these low-end printers is hit or miss. For example, some low-end HP DeskJet printers use the pnm2ppa driver to printer documents in PPA format. Although drivers are available for many of these Winprinters, many of them are not fully supported.

Ghostscript may also support your printer, if it does you can use it to do your printing. Ghostscript is a free PostScript and PDF file interpreter that can convert content to output that can be interpreted by a variety of printers.

For more information on printer support under Linux check out www.linuxprinting.org