Just bought an HP deskjet 2132 combo, printer found, but no scanner. HP website seems to think this will work with Linuxmint 17.2. Have Simple Scan installed and about 15 different flavors of cups. Obviously, something is missing. ELI5 what I do next. Haven't tried the package manager yet, only used it once and can't say I understand what it's telling me. To say I'm very new to Linux is a big understatement.

maybe here lies a mess?
Check also output of should say something about scanner device name, so you can use that to search forums.

There's only one listing for HP. Looks like this: Bus 001 Device 012: ID 03f0:e111 Hewlett-Packard Should there be a separate item for both printer and scanner?

Do you have HPLIP installed? It should be in the repos. Note that the base HPLIP package and the GUI interface (hp-toolbox on the command line) are often two separate packages.

I have an old HP all-in-one. All the features work with HPLIP on every Linux distro I've used the device with, including Ubuntu, Mint, Mageia, Slackware, and with two BSD's. (I normally use xsane for scanning, because it's usually already there.)

I've got xsane, hplip, hplip-gui, simple scan all installed. None of them can find the scanner. What are the odds of that? Especially since there was no problem finding the printer. Downloaded a file from sourceforge called hplip-3.16.3.run but that doesn't look like something that belongs in Linux?

When you configured your multi-function HP device, did you do it using 'hp-setup'?

http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web.../hp_setup.html

Assuming you're using the HPLIP 'hp' backend for printing, the scanner function should work too. Show us the URL defined in /etc/cups/printers/conf, or the output of this command (executed in a terminal)
If that checks out as expected, then check that the 'hpaio' scanner backend is also declared in /etc/sane.d/dll.conf

Here's the lpstat:

scheduler is running
system default destination: i860
device for DeskJet-2130-series: usb://HP/DeskJet%202130%20series?serial=CN61B48166068Y&interface=1
device for i860: usb://Canon/i860?serial=1096ED
DeskJet-2130-series accepting requests since Fri 25 Mar 2016 04:08:36 PM MDT
i860 accepting requests since Tue 22 Mar 2016 09:37:12 PM MDT
printer DeskJet-2130-series is idle. enabled since Fri 25 Mar 2016 04:08:36 PM MDT
printer i860 is idle. enabled since Tue 22 Mar 2016 09:37:12 PM MDT

The i860 is my very old printer I'm trying to replace. I have next to zero command line experience, what does lpstat -t mean?

And there's your problem...
You're not using HPLIP for the printer. That's the standard 'usb' backend, not the 'hp' backend required by HPLIP. Now, while many HP printers are supported by other drivers, you need to use HPLIP drivers to get the scanning function to work. You need to configure via the HPLIP-GUI. From a terminal, you should be able to configure using 'hp-setup'.

It's a CUPS command used to report status information about printers and print jobs. I requested this information so that I could see your defined printer queue(s).

You could also use frankbell's suggestion to run 'hp-toolbox' to configure your multifunction printer.

Spent the last couple of hours trying to install this printer/scanner. No matter what I try,it can't find it. I've configured several printers and scanners and I know you can't configure something you can't find. The menu option says it's there, hp toolbox-nope, HPLIP-nope and the HP icon in the panel-nope. I even deleted it and started all over-nope. Unless you guys have another idea, I'm going to return it tomorrow.

I'm not quite sure that I understand you completely. Did/can you launch 'hp-toolbox' or 'hp-setup' from a terminal?
Does that detect your attached printer and allow you to configure succesfully?

You have to install those packages. They're in the Ubuntu repositories. They're not included in the base Ubuntu because not everyone uses HP printers.

The OP did say that the hplip packages were installed, but might be worth confirming again
http://hplipopensource.com/node/306

According to the software manager, all of that was installed. Tried the terminal hp-setup, nothing. I can find the software to do the config, but it can't find anything to config. My old Canon (came over on the Mayflower), it has no problems. But I really need a scanner, so the combo seemed like a good idea, space considerations.