Installing HP All-In-One HP Deskjet 3520
 

Although I perhaps should be addressing this question to Hewlett Packard, I wonder if anyone has installed an HP printer successfully on Linux Ubuntu 12.04? I have had monunmental problems trying to install a new wireless printer. I went to a Website and was asked to download hplip-3-12-10a, but when I attempted to do this I was told that it wasn't compatible with my printer. I was then asked to use some code in the command line, but the last time I did this was with my old Amiga, and I would have thought in this day & age, things would be made as easy as possible. I can't even get the printer to be recognised using USB. it seems the most difficult thing in the world to get an HP printer to work with Linux, and yet all the other printers I've used, have all worked pretty well first time. I also use Zorin Core, but it won't work on that either. Has anyone out there cracked the HP nightmare?

The Open Printing database indicates that it should work with HPLIP, so I suspect something else is going on.

http://www.openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-DeskJet_3520

Most HP printers work quite nicely with Linux.

I would suggest installing HPLIP from the Ubuntu repos. There is also a GUI for HPLIP, which is often a separate package. I would install them both--the GUI (hp-toolbox from the command line) is easy to work with.

You might also run lsusb from a terminal and see whether it reports the presence of the printer. If not, try testing again with a known-good USB cable--it's unlikely to be the problem, but it's worth ruling it out.

Welcome to the forums! HP is arguably the most linux-friendly printer manufacturer, and hplip is in the Ubuntu repositories, so you can install it with a couple of clicks in the software center. :)

Regarding your comment about using command line codes to accomplish tasks in Linux, there is a very important reason why most tutorials and forums do so. The reason is not that you must use the command line because point-and-click tools are nonexistent, but rather that the command line is the same for all users, while the graphical user interface can vary widely. For example if you are using Ubuntu and I am using Xubuntu, we can communicate with each other using easy-to-copy-and-paste terminal commands, but if I tell you "click the purple button two thirds of the way down the left side of the screen" the instructions will be meaningless because you have a different desktop environment. :)

Thanks for the reply. yes, it makes sense, but I have been frantically promoting Linux with a local group here in Wales, and it is going very well. I realy want to solve this problem, which is with my own computer, but I can quite expect this problem to occur with one of the group, and if I can't solve it, it is not going to look good for Linux. Fortunately, no-one else has had this problem yet, and those who have attached printers to their Linux PCs have never had a problem, and neither have I up to this point. Like most wireless printers, HP's 3520 needs to be connected with USB first, but even that doesn't work. It connects and recognises the printer, but won't print

What does HPLIP report as the status of the printer?

Also, what does CUPS report (in your browser, see http://localhost:631 for the CUPS page, then check status)?

Your description of the problem doesn't give me much to theorize about, but the Arch wiki has an excellent section of troubleshooting printing: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...roubleshooting