There are now at least three main Linux printer driver projects: Gutenprint, Foomatic, and HPLIP. Some distributions install the whole works by default, on some you must install them separately. Many printers are supported by all three, so you can try the different drivers to see which ones work best. TurboPrint is a proprietary option that costs money, about $30, and is a nice alternative for color printers when the other three don't supply good drivers.

The HPLIP project site includes a database of Linux-supported printers and exactly what features are supported. Mr. Greenblatt is proud of the quality of the HPLIP project, and claims that the HPLIP drivers are more secure than the CUPS drivers. HPLIP offers automatic network delivery of printer drivers, which is a lovely thing for those of us who are scarred by years of setting this up manually in our CUPS + Samba network printer servers.

But there are still some flies in the soup-- print jobs that disappear, and then reappear days later when you don't want them, lack of good user- and admin control panels, and little in the way of meaningful notifications, like is this printer really online now? Is my print job really getting printed? Is it low on toner or paper? Why, after all these years, are these basic features still lacking? What about professional-level color printing, and color profiling? Come back on Thursday and we'll answer some of these questions, and dig deeper into finding ways to make printing on Linux less vexing and more reliable. If it's any consolation, using Windows or Novell's iPrint as printer servers is worse. Linux offers an amazing level of reliability and functionality-- the trick is figuring out how.