Slackware 12.x HPLIP support
 

So, I was trying to get my HP f380 printer/scanner to work. Works out of the box as a printer with CUPS using the foomatic f300 series driver. But... no scanner found by kooka, or anywhere else.

I went to google and found the drivers at
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web...00_series.html
but interestingly it says that Slackware doesn't support scanning, unlike, say Ubuntu or SUSE or Mepis etc. So what do they have that Slackware doesn't?

Searching here found this interesting post in this thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...620/page2.html

where apparently subsequently scanning did work for that printer (an HP 940c, which also is listed as unsupported for scanning on hplipopensource.com)

So, before I go and follow the directions on one of those two links, what is the story? Is scanning supported, and if so why is Slackware being maligned by hplibopensource :)? Or if not, what can be done to make it so? Do I follow H_TexMex_X's advice, or have things changed in the last two years?

Slack dose support scanners.
Slack has a HP Tool box that works with every all-in-one I've tried it on.
Is your user in the "lp" and "scanner' group?

you may have to add:

LC_ALL=$LANG.UTF8 hp-toolbox
or
LC_ALL=$LANG.UTF8 /usr/bin/hp-toolbox

To the "command" section of the "HP Tool-box" KDE menu.
This is what always works for me on 12.1 and 12.2 but there may be a better way.
-Current now works with just a click on the tool-box from the menu.

OK, well that sounds helpful. Can't try it right now, I'll have to report back. There is a HP utility installed on the KDE menu, but it says "No devices installed", and it doesn't find any if you try "Setup devices", just like in the old thread from 2007 I quoted above.

HPLIP uses the sane for its backend. See if you can run your scanner using xsane.

You can scan just fine with Slackware. The only caveate might be new HP hardware not yet being supported with a driver in sane,

First, are you a memeber of lp? and scanner? You definitly need to be a member of lp since 12.2.

To see if sane can find your scanner first try:

That command doesn't always find the scanner and won't find a networked scanner but scanimage -L will:

The sane manual is an easy read. I network a scanner so don't use hplip but if sane is set up right then hplip should work for scanning. Sorry, I also don't remember whether sane comes ready to roll on stand alone workstation with Slack or if some file has to be edited first in /etc/sane.d.

I have an F380 and it DOES work, printing, scanning, all of that.

You can follow my instructions, but I think newer versions of Slackware have a recent, good HPLIP already installed so you can just use that (you don't need to install a new HPLIP like my instructions say, but you can follow the rest).

It could also be a permissions problem, make sure to add yourself to the right groups as said above. Try also running 'xsane' as root to check if it works. If it works as root then it is a permissions problem.

EDIT:

Well, if things don't work as they are supposed to you could try installing a more recent HPLIP.

Thanks, that's good to know. Haven't had a chance to get another whack at it recently, but I'll post when I get to try it out. But what's up with the "misinformation" on the hplipopensource website? Clearly it isn't outdated, since the OS versions are up to date. Hate to see Slackware portrayed as not supporting something that it does...

Maybe it says different somewhere else on the website but this seems to indicate that they do not regularly test to see if it works on Slackware not that it is not supported.

Hplip wouldn't be in Slackware if it didn't work in Slackware.

Just for the record it has never worked, for me, in Slackware, in the seven years I've owned my HP Deskjet 940c.
:)

I have a 930c and it worked on that. I remember setting it up with HPLIP in slack-10.1 back before it was included in slack. I don't remember when it was first included in slack but I did have it running on a vanilla 12.2 install just to do some diagnostics on the same 930c to see whether it was the printer or a cartridge that was stuffed. I also had an hp psc2355 set up on it at that time.

Personally I never liked hplip much and probably wouldn't bother with it if the printers and scanner were not networked. I use xsane or exsane as a gimp plugin, I'd sometimes use kooka but I'm using current now and skanlite is a bit spare plus it needs a tweek to see an networked scanner.

Still in all I give HP credit for making the effort to support Linux over the years and I'm sure allot of folks are happy to use HPLIP.

Oh, I definitely agree with that. I give HP full marks for making the effort and hplip does work in other distributions. Works perfectly, out of the box, in Kubuntu, but as I consider Slackware to be a better distribution I'm not about to run Kubuntu just to be able to use hplip.
:)

cwizardone: I'm confused, here in 2007 you said:

but now,

So, it worked...or not?

justwantin:

You make an excellent point, nonetheless, I don't know why they would update the version numbers on Slackware and not test it at all. Wouldn't it be better to say "not tested" or tested with hplip-ver-XXX only, or something like that?

to all, thanks and:

Finally, if, as cwizardone pointed out, it works out of the box with Kubuntu, what do they have setup differently that makes it work smoothly? Or is that one of those "dang, it could be a hundred different things" questions?

H_TeXMeX_H: BTW, been really busy, haven't had another try at it.

My quote was from the hplip website. It is hplip who says
They test regularly in those distributions that in their opinion have the greatest market share (read users) They may from time to time test on other distros but but from their point of view time/manpower/hardware is finite they can not test every distro every time they change something.

Nothing goes into Slackware unless it appears to work correctly but again Pat and others closely involved in the process do not have time to test every possible hardware combo nor can they anticipate every possible intervening factor or miss-configuration. If it is believed that something might be problematic it goes into /testing.

hplip has never, in Slackware, worked for me, but I have been able to install the hpjis driver using CUPS.

justwantin: I understand what you're saying and agree. I just was pointing out that it seems weird to me that they would post compatibility tables with current version numbers without testing them. I mean, why say it doesn't work, which their web page says, if they didn't test it? If it were me, I'd just leave the untested distros/versions off the table, like the hundreds of distros not on the table. Whatever.

cwizardone: thanks for the clarification. hpjis using CUPS is what I have now, works fine for printing but no scanner. I presume hplip isn't installed by default, so as soon as I get a chnace I'll try doing what H_TeXMeX_H said. Ought to work since we have the same printer!

Oh and BTW Thanks all around :)

If you did a full install, hplip IS installed.
Strange that hpijs does work and hplip does not, hpijs is just a part of the hplip package (hpijs = the printer drivers, where hplip also contains the scanner drivers)...