Today's challenge was to get my new printer working in linux.

Previously this has been a tedious task, however today I was pleasantly surprised.

Printing in linux is all about CUPS, the Common UNIX Printing System. In the past getting a printer working involved various tedious command line complexities. However, today I used the a CUPS configuration tool, system-config-printer. It was very logical to find in the ubuntu menu.

system -> administration -> printing

Then all I had to do was click on the new printer icon (oh and remember to switch on the printer!) and it discovered my siny new HP. I had thought that because it was a network printer there would be more hastle and configuration but not so. The five tabs allow you to adjust the details of the printer but the defaults seem just fine.

Read more:

http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/overview.html