I tried Mate live and was impressed so I installed it and first tried to install a printer. This is the item that many distros fail on. I am using a laptop with 1366/768 resolution and the first problem was that the install page used the full height of the screen. I had to move the panels to the side of the screen so I could see the “Forward” button. It found my network printer and then found a driver to download. I accepted the licence and it installed the driver. I then clicked “Forward” and it asked me to select a driver from a database but my printer was not listed so I went back and selected to search for a driver. This took me back to the original driver install screen where I, again, accepted the Epson licence. Again it installed the driver. If I now clicked “Forward” it would just keep installing the driver. It would never take me to a page to finish the installation.
Congratulations on a great release; it is one of the finest Ubuntu versions but this printer problem needs fixing. I tried logging a bug on Github but it seemed too complicated.
You didn’t specify which printer your trying to set up. Most likely you need some firmware for the printer.
Thanks ramblinman41. It is an Epson XP-310. I found the solution at Epson printer drivers no longer install which basically advises to install the drivers first with apt then create the printer. Most distros omit the XP-310 from their list of drivers which is odd as it is not a new model.
This doesn’t solve the problem of the oversize screen which is not adjustable. In all other respects it is an excellent distro but new users would be put off by this problem.
EPSON have a Linux driver for your printer model. You could use that one instead of the one in Ubuntu’s repository by following this procedure to install the dependencies (as they are not present in 16.04) and then installing the EPSON driver.
You should remove the existing printer first if you choose to use EPSON’s driver.
I must use their driver for my EPSON Stylus SX425W otherwise the Ubuntu driver prints the colours misaligned. 