Chris Collins on Software

Problem: Printing from Ubuntu to the departmental printer results in the first page printing, followed by a blank page, no subsequent pages are printed. Printing a test page results in a second blank page also.

Solution: …

The printer is a HP LaserJet 8150DN shared to the department from a samba server.

I had tried several different configurations without luck. I had even asked our admin to enable IPP, but that didn’t help either. Nothing seemed to work, until I changed the printer model/driver from the default “HP LaserJet 8150 Series postscript” to “HP LaserJet 8150 Series hpijs”. Since then, printing has been perfect.

The original postscript driver is the “recommended” one, so I don’t know what the root cause of this problem is. I don’t know enough about postscript and/or samba to know if they could be the issue.

So I guess if you have printing problems, it’s no harm to try different drivers for your model of printer. I have found support for HP printers to be exemplary under Ubuntu.