I have three related questions. I'm trying to install the drivers for an HP Deskjet 2050 All-in-One Series J510a printer on my mother's computer running a Linux OS.

Q#1 - When I try to access the Setup.exe file on the installation CD that came with the printer, a message says, "You must first be logged in as an administrator or a standard user to install this software. Please login with those credentials and restart installation." I restarted the computer/logged in using my mother's user name and p'word, but the message still appears. I also went into Authorizations and added "Yes" to Anyone, Console, and Active Console, but the message still appears. How can I bypass that error msge and install the drivers from the CD?

Q#2 - I went to HP's site to download the drivers from the web. They directed me to a Linux site which asks me for the distribution & version of the OS I'm running before downloading the software. How does one find out what OS distribution & version is running?

Q#3 - Somehow, I managed to bypass the request for the OS distro & version and was able to download the latest HPLIP version (driver software for HP printers) onto the desktop, but I can't open the file to install it. How does one open/install a downloaded file that has a .run extension?

Thank you very much for any help you can give in solving this dilemma.

Forget about the the CD-ROM that came with the printer -- it's for Windows (only!) and will do you less than zero good on a Linux system (Windows stuff just doesn't run on Linux, completely different).

You may already have what you need (most Linux distributions include HPILP, which is what you use to install an H-P printer). Open a terminal window (where you can type commands) and enter
If that's there, you're good to go -- simply follow the instructions presented to you (and, you will need the root password).

So, let's say it's not there -- it's your Mom's computer? Ask her what version it is; your post is coming from an Ubuntu system if that's any help.

Hope this helps some.

2 members found this post helpful.

The graphical interface to hplip is hp-toolbox. You can run it from the command line if it doesn't appear in a menu.

In some distros, hp-toolbox is not part of the base hplip install, but needs to be installed separately. If that's the case with your Ubuntu, open the Synaptic package manager, search for hplip, then look for an hplip-gui package.

1. hp-setup needs to be run as root, so use (depending on your distro) either of
su -c "hp-setup"
sudo hp-setup

If it complains about missing GUI support, use "hp-setup -i"

2. hp-toolkit, if I remember rightly, is for debugging, checking ink usage, etc.

The tool kit in the ubuntu is an installation tool which will guide you with the installation and give the option of automatically or manually solve all the dependency issues.

The HPLIP GUI, hp-toolbox, can also be used to discover and set up HP printers and scanners for CUPS. It works like a charm.