2d ago

4x6 thermal label printers on linux

Does anyone have 4x6 thermal label printers working on Linux?

I have tried several thermal printers, zebra and off brands, none of them work on Linux, also tried arch, mint, manjaro, Ubuntu, and a few others.

Printers all detect and install, but never prints. I messed with CUPS settings, didnt help. I also tried LPrint. Didnt work. Nothing comes out any of the label printers. Not even the sample test labels.

Been using Linux for about 2 years full time. I only have windows to print shipping labels. I HATE using windows 10 and refuse to use 11. Now with no updates it’s the last thing I need to replace.

23 comments

Brother QL-550 here. I think it might be smaller than you need but judging by this and the other comments the Brother QL series looks good. Can't remember what setup it needed (I don't think there was much) but if the information is helpful to you I can take a look
Brother QL-1110NWB
Works flawlessly on Ubuntu. Even the cut feature. I recall looking at their Linux driver page, but can't recall if it was even necessary to install it.
Because this is a network-enabled model, it was auto-detected on the network. That makes printing from Android a breeze as well.
I imagine the other Brother models work just as well like the QL-1100.
- Yeah, I have a QL-570 and it works fine.
I have a Amazon thermal printer ("TATTMUSE") running on vanilla debian. related blog post.
Yes! I have a few Zebra printers working on Mint via cups. They work perfectly.
- Same here. I have three models of Zebra printers and they were all pretty much plug and play with Linux.
- I couldn't get the orientation right on mine.
  But it did work rotated 90°.
In my experience:
All printers are pain. This is a sad fact of computers.
If it detects&gets recognized in CUPS, you can usually fiddle with it and make it work eventually.
If it works on one distro, there will be some way to hack it enough for it to work on all distros.
- I'm responsible for print in my company. Printers are spawned from Satan's sphincter and only want to see humanity suffer.
  
  Printers are the only piece of hardware I own that I am legitimately surprised by when they work.
I've been using a printer called 4barcode for a while. It has an apt package with ppd cups drivers in it, and it works well.
I don't know the exact model, and I think the brand of the printer might not even be 4barcode and it's just a different "brand" but really they're all the same?
That having been said, the one I have once failed to work with a brand of labels on a roll I bought in a pinch, but the fanfold ones I've been using from Amazon work well.
I use a Rollo thermal printer on Linux Mint with zero issues. Rock solid.
- I too have the Rollo and the Ali express version and have had no problems. 4x6 and 1x3 labels. Many thousands of each
Usually for these devices the application generates ZPL printer data directly. What application are you thinking of using?
Zebra indicates that there are CUPS drivers available for their printers on “some Linux distributions”
https://supportcommunity.zebra.com/s/article/Adding-a-Zebra-Printer-in-a-CUPS-Printing-System?language=en_US
There’s also this GitHub repo which promises a better PPD file for Zebra printers.
https://github.com/mvnural/zebra-cups-driver
- Most of The labels I print come directly from eBay. Sometimes I will have a PDF or JPG of a label to print. Those I click CTL-P and select the printer.
  I did play with CUPS a ton, adding custom files, all that. Nothing worked. That’s why I bought 2 other no name label printers to see if those would work. But same issue.
  I ended up buying a rollo printer, hopefully hay just works.
  Thank you for your advice.
- Zebra works with cups, the ppd files are included with cups
Many label printers (especially the older ones) use a proprietary text-based language, and accept plain vanilla text input via their serial port. They don't use a printer driver as such. To use one of them you have to learn their command language (usually pretty simple) and write a text file describing what you want to print using that language, and upload the file to the printer.
Start with the printer documentation and go from there.
Newer printers need linux drivers. Support varies.
- BTW this is also the case for most network printers. You can just print to them by sending a pdf/postscript file with netcat. CUPS is rarely needed nowadays.
  
  Can you get modern laser printers that work that way?
  I recently tried setting up my hp p1102w to print from openwrt using p910nd, but can't because it's a "host based" printer, whatever that means.
  Even in cups, it needs a special driver to get it to behave. Doesn't even work out of the box on my Fedora install.
  I bought it a couple years ago, second hand, because the toner is cheap, and if I don't update the firmware, I can keep using aftermarket toner.
  It has Wi-Fi, but sometimes it refuses to print from Linux or my phone, just randomly. Always works on Windows though 🤦‍♂️
  My plan is to kill the Wi-Fi because I don't trust it being so out of date anymore, and either plug it into my server or slap a rpi on the back with cups on the network. But it's proving to be a painful experience.
- This is the way we did things back in the day in manufacturing. Zebra printers connected to serial connections or via dumb terminals via serial ports being sent ZPL from OpenVMS based applications.
- I was sure the zebra used its own proprietary stuff, that’s why I got 2 more modern no name printers hoping they would work. I was so fed up with the zebra not working after trying everything I found online.
  I ended up buying a rollo printer. Thank you for your advice!
Not label printers but I've used thermal receipt printers which should be similar. They use a special command set designed by Epson which is supposedly "confidential" but it's easy to find manuals online. I expect there is code around too. I didn't attempt any CUPS integration. My program just sent the commands directly to the printer.
If it's thermal paper/stickers and it advances the paper but doesn't actually print anything, you might double check to make sure the paper is still good. Hold it over a lit lighter and make sure it darkens with heat.
Nevermind, I missed the last paragraph where it's already working on Windows

23 comments