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, pop OS, Debian, gentoo, kali, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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”
There’s also this GitHub repo which promises a better PPD file for Zebra printers.
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.
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
Zebra ZD220 DT works great on Linux using CUPS. Tested it on both Ubuntu 23.10 and the latest version of Mint.