One of my printers in my office is an HP Laser Jet 1012 black and white which a computer repair client of mine gave to me. The reason they gave it away escapes me now.  It may have had a problem I repaired or perhaps they couldn’t get it to work in Microsoft Windows 7. From the HP sticker on the printer, it was manufactured in October 2003 which means I’m using a 13-year old printer!
As I recall the first time I connected it to my main Linux computer, it immediately recognized it and printed without any programming from me.  It’s not used a lot- just for one to three page jobs every couple of days, but it always works.  There’s nothing fancy about it being a black white USB printer;  It can’t scan, fax, copy or print via wireless. It just prints fast, good quality pages whenever I need it.

When I  tried connecting this printer to a Windows 7 computer, it couldn’t find a driver for it in the Windows database. Even after running a troubleshooter, it still couldn’t print.  That’s another reason I like Linux: older hardware sometimes still works on it when it won’t in Microsoft Windows. I can’t remember if HP has a driver for it or not for Windows 7, but that’s the next place I would look for a driver.  Fortunately. I don’t care since it runs fine in Linux! 

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