Bazzite’s printer drivers don’t list my very old Brother MFC-J5720DW unit, and I’ve been even more eager not to layer Brother’s own drivers (as per Bazzite’s recommendation), so I looked through the printers and drivers Bazzite alleges it supports and I ended up buying a Canon Maxify MB2150.
Such a shame that Bazzite won’t then print to the printer it alleges it supports.
Upon turning the Canon on (whilst connected via USB), Bazzite immediately finds it and offers to install the “Canon MB2100 series – CUPS+Gutenprint v5.3.5 Simplified” driver.
I accept it’s suggestion, the installation finishes, and I request a test page. The printer whirs and clunks, and the print queue on Bazzite tells me it’s sent 24% of the print job.
But that’s as far as it get. Cue tumbleweed as I wait for something … anything … to happen.
Since then, I’ve tried the following drivers (via KDE system settings, as well as via CUPS browser interface:
- Canon MB2100 series – CUPS+Gutenprint v5.3.5
- Canon Maxify MB2100 – CUPS+Gutenprint v5.3.5
- Canon Maxify MB2100 – CUPS+Gutenprint v5.3.5 Simplified.
- Canon Maxify MB2150 – CUPS+Gutenprint v5.3.5
- Canon Maxify MB2150 – CUPS+Gutenprint v5.3.5 Simplified.
- Generic IPP Everywhere Printer
Sometimes:
- The printer will whir and click, with the print queue stuck at 24% of the job sent; or
- The screen on the printer acknowledges some data was received, and the print job shows as completed in the queue; or
- Nothing from either the printer or the print queue.
The end result is always the same - nothing ever prints out.
Two FYIs:
- Scanning on the Canon via the Document Scanned flatpak app is 100% perfect. Everything found, recognised, and scanned. So easy. So quick. All good.
- On a second drive in the same computer, I booted into Windows 11, it installed the driver automatically, and I could print a Windows test page with no issues whatsoever.
So Bazzite can see the Canon, it can use its scanner with perfect ease, but it won’t print anything.
Which brings me back to my question: Why does Bazzite list something that can’t/won’t use?