Bought a new brother laser printer (fuck hp inkjet), decided to print something on Windows. Typical Windows could detect the printer even though it shows up in the network section as a device. Downloads and install barebone driver from brother website still refuses to work. Logged in to Linux mint 1 second later “New Brother DCP-L235DW printer has been added”. I wasted more than half an hour trying to print something on Windows and on Linux didn’t even need a single click to configure the printer.
I dont use Linux much, but when it come to Linux it just works without doing anything (atleast on mint).
Just want say how Windows sucks, even my phone was able to print without additional software.
I had a similar situation.
I had an old laser printer that was officially unsupported on OS X. Meaning that they had a driver for OS X for a similar model, but not exactly the same model, that supposedly worked for it, but they deliberately did not let you use it with my model of printer. Found some crazy instructions online that told you to install the drivers, then change the driver with a hex editor to force it to recognize your printer as a different model. It worked, occasionally, intermittently. I spend like half a week trying to get it to work under OS X and it just wouldn’t work reliably.
Tried a Windows computer. Wasted half a day installing a driver, uninstalling a driver, plugging in, unplugging, turning on, turning off, but it just couldn’t recognize it.
Booted into Linux and hit “print” and it worked perfectly. Didn’t even need to install a driver.