Reinstalled Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon and all appears to be working correctly now. During the installation, I upgraded my HPLIP software to 3.17.4.

After the installation was complete, I did my housekeeping routine by running:

sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove
ran the gtkOrphan GUI

loaded Synaptic Package Manager, reloaded cache, then clicked "Not Installed (residual configuration)" button and "HPLIP" appears in the package list; the INSTALLED VERSION column is blank and the LATEST VERSION column reads "3.15.2".

Can I safely remove HPLIP, or will removing this package affect the installed HPLIP 3.17.4 version?

Thanks, guys!

Please paste the output from the following command:

dpkg -l '*hplip*'

By the way, there is no need to run apt-get autoclean before apt-get clean: clean carries out a more thorough cleanup than autoclean.

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Thanks, hydrurga!

Here's the info requested:

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
rc hplip 3.15.2-0trus amd64 HP Linux Printing and Imaging Sys
un hplip-cups <none> <none> (no description available)
ii hplip-data 3.15.2-0trus all HP Linux Printing and Imaging - d
un hplip-doc <none> <none> (no description available)
un hplip-gui <none> <none> (no description available)

Thanks FenderGuy.

Hplip hasn't been properly installed/upgraded.

Reinstall it with:

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Looks like it worked, hydrurga!

Now, when I open Synaptic Package Manager, "HPLIP" no longer appears. Also, when I open HP Device Manager and run Diagnose HPLIP Driver, it still reads, "3.17.4".

Thank you SO much!

No problem. It was a bit strange that there was no trace of 3.17.4 before, even though you said that you had upgraded to that version. Never mind.

Out of interest, does gtkOrphan ever find anything? I've never used the application, or seen the need to, but I'm interested as to whether it is of any use.

I run the GUI version of gtkOrphan (available in Software Manager), and YES, it finds stuff!

I just ran it and would attach the contents, but I don't have privileges... :-(

Ok. I might give it a whirl one day. Thanks.

Just a word of caution, FenderGuy.

I installed gtkOrphan to try it out.

The first package it suggested as a removable orphan was dconf-tools (a transitional dummy package - I noticed that quite a few of the suggested packages were transitional dummy packages).

However, removing dconf-tools would then leave the automatically-installed dconf-editor (which was installed, I assume, through being a dependency of dconf-tools).

The next sudo apt-get autoremove would therefore automatically remove dconf-editor (a package which I use and need). Not so useful.

I have to say that I don't really see the benefit of having gtkOrphan (the amount of space it would free up would be minimal) but I can see the costs if the application gets it wrong as it did here.

Uninstalling gtkOrphan as we speak...