Those of us who have been using UNIX based systems since the Dark Ages remember that printing was one of the most annoying, obnoxious, difficult to set up things about the whole thing. Those days are long gone. Today, printing with Linux is even easier than with Windows.
I’m serious.
Go out, buy a printer, throw away the driver CD that came with it, and just plug it in to your Linux system. This is what will happen:
Plug in your printer and start printing!
Firefox Print dialog
That’s right, no messing with drivers, no installing any stupid software that’s going to slow down your computer and cause you all sorts of headaches down the road, no extra drivers to install, you just plug it in and it works. Try that with Windows.
(This ease of use demonstration was performed on Fedora 9. Almost every printer manufactured through early 2008 is supported. For information overload, see LinuxPrinting.org.)
Unfortunately Ubuntu (think also Fedora) adopted an annoying windows behavior here.
When your printer is switched off but there are some jobs in the queue, ubuntu permanently bugs you with a “printer not connected or powered off” message. EVEN when you print via local spool files like in the DARK AGES.
It’s windows thinking to assume you want your printed paper exactly at the time you print (and then bug you with annoying popups).