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Best way to install HP printer-scanner

What will be the best way to install HP printer-scanner in slackware: through a driver downloaded from HP's website or kde-settings or cups (localhost:631)? Thanks in advance.

CUPS (localhost:631) has always worked flawlessly for me. HP's are very Linux friendly.

I tried kde> 'manage printers'. It opened CUPS in browser and I could install the printer without downloading any driver from HP's site. Thanks.

Or use hp-setup. Works great as well although in the end it just adds a printer in cups. But it is useful for multifunctional devices, since it also sets up scanner and fax or whatever.

Slackware includes the HPLIP package (it's installed by default if you did a full install). HPLIP provides support for pretty much every printer HP makes; however, you may want to download the current version from HP if you have a brand-new printer (see below).

You do the printer installation by executing hp-setup in a terminal window like this:

Code:

su - or sudo

hp-setup

See http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web.../hp_setup.html for guidance.

If your printer includes a scanner, you will need to add your user(s) account(s) to the lp and scanner groups. If you

Code:

groups

You should see

Code:

users lp floppy dialout audio video cdrom plugdev power usbfs netdev scanner

If lp and scanner do not appear in that list,

Code:

su - or sudo

usermod -a -G lp,scanner your_user_id

Now, if you have a brand-new printer model, HPLIP may not include support for it. So, you need to do a little work before you start. First, go to http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/h...-3.12.2.tar.gz to download the current version of HPLIP (3.12.2).

Then, grab your Slackware CD/DVD, inset it in a drive and do something like this

Code:

su - or sudo

cd /usr/local

cp -pr /media/SlackDVD/source/ap/hplip .

cd hplip

delete the file named hplip-3.11.3a.tar.xz

delete the file named hplip*.t?z

move the tarball you downloaded into this directory

hplip.SlackBuild

wait a while

upgradepkg /tmp/hplip*.t?z

mv /tmp/hplip*.t?z .

What that did was upgraded you existing HPLIP to the current version; chances are, if you have a brand-new-model it will be fully supported.

Note that you may want to make this printer the system default. You do that in CUPS by navigating to http://localhost:631, click Printers, click the name of the printer you just installed, click Administration and finally click Set as Server Default.

Hope this helps some.

CUPS is the most reliable way, IMO. In Slackware 13.37, I believe the printer is auto-detected and auto-added, at least from what I see. I didn't need to add it at all, but I did need to make it the default in order to print using lp and lpr.

Oddly enough, I had a problem with hplip in 13.37 and current with my all-in-one f380. No problem printing or scanning from the desktop, but I'm sharing the thing on samba with cups.

There are several tweaks that need to be made to get it usable over the network for both Linux and Windows machines, at least in my experience, with a fresh install of slackware. There were no ppd files for the printer, for example, and there is no SANE setup.

However, I went to the HP website and downloaded the latest tarball and reinstalled, and was then able to set everything up just fine. So, I suspect there's something not quite right with the default installation.