Right now I'm using Slackware 10 with the 2.4.26 kernel and I can't even find Slackware drivers for my Lexmark Z605 Printer and that's pretty frustrating since it's pretty important for me to use my printer within a week or so. I'm thinking of switching distros to one that is a lot easier to use and is fast and stable. My friend that uses Slackware won't switch to anything else because he's hell bent on learning that distro inside and out. He didn't like Red Hat WS or Mandrake and is being thick headed on this issue so I'm thinking of trying out SUSE Personal or Professional. Is this a smart move for someone who just wants everything to just work or should I be trying some other distro? Thank you for your time.

if you are still into slack and like learning linux, then install suse and slack on the same box. that's my opinion.

have you started a thread here on the printer? i'm sure there's a solution.

Well - I use Slack a lot and I love it, so I'm going to be biased and advise you to stick with it. Generally, Linux drivers aren't distro specific, so if you find one Linux driver, chances are it will work with your Slackware install. If you find a .rpm driver file you can use rpm2tgz to convert it to Slackware package format.

Lexmark and Canon both have horrible support for Linux. But you should try linuxprinting.org, it tells you there whether your printer is supported.

Quote from linuxprinting.org

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There are few good free software drivers for Canon and Lexmark inkjets. Do not buy one and expect success.

A more brute force approach to the situation, simply buy a different printer, You can buy a pretty nice printer for less than $100 and concidering the cost of ink carts, a lot of printers are disposable. If this is something that you decide to do Make sure you send the company an email telling them you switched to a printer that has linux drivers. Also search Sourceforge, there is a lot of great projects there as well.