Use any GDI printer with GNU/Linux

Most GDI printers are not supported using GNU/Linux.

Here is a way to use your printer anyway.

Step 1 Lucky users

Before going further, check that your printer doesn't support a printing description language as postscript or PCL or something else that is supported under Linux.

If you are lucky then use the appropriate driver.

Some GDI printers are supported, so if it's your case, you should use this instead, check the list here :

http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Generic-GDI_Printer

Comments

[manuel.flury]

My Dell 3010 is now supported under Linux, it's definitely more convenient :-)

http://www.openprinting.org/show_driver.cgi?driver=pxldpl&fromprinter=Dell-3010CN

[Grendel]

Theres also ghostscript support for a massive list of printers. You can also take this one step further, export the printer from windows as a postscript printer (there is software, i can't think of it at the moment) via smb/cifs, and use samba on your linux host to access it. Though I can't remember any time I've gotten reasonable results printing from linux, ever. (and this is over a decade of use)

[manuel.flury]

Good idea, I have to test this !