FWIW, the Internet Printing Protocol (and IPP Everywhere in particular) make printer setup in CUPS far, far easier, but distributors seem reluctant to encourage it. I wrote about my experiences with IPP back in June (https://lwn.net/Articles/857502/). I expect to never have to hassle with printer drivers again...
I own a HP MFP and for several years HPLIP generally worked for several to many months at a time, until it didn't. Me and the wiff both run Arch on our laptops (she doesn't know or care).
After a particularly rubbish time trying to get HPLIP working again after a pacman -Syu I did a literature search: Mr CUPS had deprecated everything apart from IPP Everywhere. So, I tried it out.
Me and the missus send docs to print and they get printed. I cannot remember the last failure (apart from running out of paper.) I also have toner levels monitored via Home Assistant.
I also have an office with several MFPs and inkjets, accessed via Windows (Server 2019) print queues. They are not so reliable. I often have to restart the Print Spooler service on our print server. To be fair, it is generally one queue that is at fault.
>To be fair, it is generally one queue that is at fault.
Printer drivers run in process as well as the port monitor (for older printers). You might find the situation improves if you use an inbox driver (one that comes with Windows) and/or the standard port monitor.
