Sending an RMA to Purism requires printing a document, but for me the CUPS drivers never worked on the printer where I’m staying. So I ended up busting out a Windows computer and using it to print, but that seems like some kind of ethical violation.
Can this be worked around or is this a consequence of the printer here?
Can you explain why you (currently) need to print a document?
Purism support emailed me a document related to a Purism hardware RMA. But maybe we could ignore that and target my question more to: is there an easy to way to print to a printer that has stupid Windows proprietary drivers, but from a Librem 14?
What make/model of printer?
What connection technologies are available? (ethernet / WiFi / USB / ?)
What printing protocols are available? (SMB / raw / LPD / IPP / ?)
What languages does the printer speak? (PostScript / PCL / ?proprietary crap)
We would need to understand where things are falling down to know whether there is a way round it.
As you apparently have access to a Windows computer that is able to print to this printer, you may be able to get some of the required information from the Windows computer.
Some printers are also capable of printing a useful configuration page.
Sure, you can rewrite the entire document by hand.
Sure, installing Windows on the Librem 14, but you already know that.
Related:
It’s the one my friend bought. He owns it. Not sure if listing brand name would reveal his personal info.
It’s on local wifi, available on the network, according to the proprietary software machines.
Yeah, I tried that for hours and hours sometime last year but my experience was that if I click through CUPs menus and get to a page to choose brand name and model, the model isn’t listed even though the brand was listed. Maybe it’s to do with Byzantium aging and the printer possibly being less than 5 years old but I’m unsure.
I got quite frustrated with it last year whenever I tried to figure it out. At some point because of limitations of the human attention span, the reality is that proprietary systems work and non proprietary don’t.
The use case I’m looking for is that when I click on Print, then I can choose the machine on the local wifi, and when I press OK a paper document comes out. Instead, I open a locally hosted web URL of cups and page through it trying to add a make/model that doen’t exist on the list, over ane over thinking I’m doing it wrong until I lose interest.
Then I come back a year later when RMA says I need to print something, and I already know PureOS doesn’t work for printing so I open up the Windows laptop I already had sitting around that other people convinced me to use by the power of suggestion since the world is getting taken over by AI or whatever and if you try to use Purism things someone puts you in a situation where you need Windows.
So the laptop was already there and then I clicked print and the paper document came out for me to do the RMA but do you see what Purism made me do there by assuming it would work???
By itself, that would be an extraordinary proposition but OK. It’s going to be hard to make any progress with such little info.
He uses Windows so how concerned can he be with revealing personal info? 
In the past I have had partial or total success just by picking a similar but non-identical model. To make a good choice though would involve researching the age and capability of the actual printer v. the models that are listed for selection.
Try a Live Boot of something more recent e.g. Ubuntu 24.04. That will test both whether being aging is a factor and whether being pure is a factor.
Or, yes, Live Boot PureOS crimson.
A getting-slightly-silly option … set up a print queue on an existing Windows computer where you are staying (i.e. not busting out a Windows computer just to do the job) and “route” the print job via Windows. Disclaimer: I would have no idea how to do do that. And the document would have to be non-sensitive for that to be acceptable (but I’m guessing it was emailed unencrypted so it has already been shared with a range of entities).
Along the same lines, print it to your printer at home (securely accessed from the internet). Sure, you won’t have the piece of paper in your hand but it will be waiting for you when you get home.
A nicer option could be running Windows inside Linux i.e. in a VM on the Librem 14.
Failing that, buy a printer that works with Linux.
Anyway, I hope some of these ideas may work for you.
You haven’t convinced me that Purism made you do anything i.e. you haven’t given any reason why you want to print this document. I mean, sure, Purism sent it to you. Just keep the email / attached document.
It’s for an RMA. It came with explicit instructions to print the PDF and include it with materials sent back to Purism.
Edit:
All of the options like a VM or a redirect through another machine are time consuming to set up, and are brittle in the sense that they depend on a particular printer. Ideally to defeat proprietary software, we build a universe of functions where the free software isn’t harder to use and I could likewise click on Print if I want to Print. That being said, I have a habit of destroying or disabling the parts of my software stack that do idle network communications when not explicitly asked to, so in my ideal computer I would be OK with a lag time where the Print button shows a load bar and reaches out to the network to see what printers are available only when I click it. As I recall, because Windows isn’t like that at all and instead constantly chats with the network about where nearby printers are, accordingly it’s possible on some versions of Windows (maybe Windows 7) to do a remote takeover of the computer by being on the same network as it, without the Windows user even taking any action that would connect with the perpetrator’s device, simply by pretending to be a printer and then overflowing the buffer of printer metadata with new instructions for the Windows to run (as Administrator since you’re inside the printer drivers).
So obviously Microsoft are suckers and losers, and they sold the USA nuclear arsenal secrets for their own profit because they knew about SolarWinds hack in advance but did nothing and then blamed it on SolarWinds and not the Microsoft side of the problem once it was used in the wild, because that is the best way for them to make money if they can lie about it.
But even if they are suckers and losers, they’re probably right about how easy the Print button should be to use. They’re simply wrong about what the technology stack behind that button should be like.
So what does the printer page in settings show when you go there and the printer is available?
Surely it could be arranged with Purism support to allow enclosing a paper with handwritten cusomer name and RMA number (with some promise to write legibly).
Did you try plugging a usb cable into the printer and seeing if that works? In my experience, if you just plug the printer directly into your computer the two devices normally can figure out how to print, but if you do it over the wifi you need to tell it more information in order for it to work.
Did not try this at the time. I am not the owner of the printer and I did not assume I had the correct cable on hand.
I used to have a printer that was “USB” but the plug that went into the printer side was some other extremely rare wacky shape.
USB-B, which is standard across printers.
OK, I suggest you contact Purism and find out what an alternative process would look like. For example, it may be that an RMA number is all that is strictly required, and you could hand-write it on a piece of blank paper.
I think we all understand that that would be the ideal.
Maybe ideal is that all printers support PostScript or PDF only (or some functionally-equivalent open alternative), support IPP only, support autodiscovery - and then printing will always “just work”.
FWIW, Linux does or can do the same.
Linux autodiscovers my printers and just creates printers on my computer that I can use. I dare say that that is dependent on both my computer’s settings (to allow that) and the printers’ functionality and settings. Oh, and I wouldn’t necessarily expect that to work for a printer connected via USB i.e. expect it to work for WiFi-/ethernet-connected printers only.
In truth, whatever is happening or not happening is not Microsoft’s fault. It’s the fault of the printer manufacturer. They know that the vast majority of the customers for their printers do not run Linux, so they don’t bother to provide software (“drivers”) for their printers for Linux.
Having said that, since you haven’t mentioned the make of printer, it may be that they have provided the needed software for Linux but you just have to find it and then install it manually.