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HPLIP and new HP printers


banjo
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Now that I have my new Mandy 2008.1 I am in the market for a color printer. I have installed HPLIP and plan on buying an HP printer. I had Epson printers before, and I will not by another one because they were nothing but a PIA. I spent more paper and ink cleaning their heads than I ever spent printing. I had two C-84s that died in the same way withing weeks of one another, and since it was the built-in print heads that died, the printers ended up in the trash.

 

Anyway, I want a small all-in-one since I will use it rarely and I will also be replacing an old scanner with it. I do my heavy printing on my Lexmark laser, but it is not a color printer. I looked online and came up with the HP 4280 as a possible option. A brief search of hplipopensource.com revealed that the 4200 series requires HPLIP 2.8.5, and my brand new Mandy 2008.1 has 2.8.2. :wall:

 

I waited to replace the printer until I had the upgraded system so that I would have drivers for a new HP. But it seems that the repositories are always a couple of revs behind what is required for the printers that are still on the shelves. So here are my questions:

 

Can I get a binary of a later HPLIP and just install it?

Do I really have to build one from source code to upgrade? :wacko:

Will the printer limp along with an older driver with partial function?

Is there a better (more compatible) all-in-one printer to get?

 

Drivers always throw me for a loop.

 

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Edited by banjo
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Well, Mandriva 2009.0 has HPLIP 2.8.7 so I guess you need to upgrade Mandriva! If you're going to buy a new printer, then expect to have to use new versions of packages. Try using CentOS or something stable that doesn't have anything newer than Gnome 2.16 instead of Gnome 2.2x in Mandriva 2008.1. You'll also find that hplip in CentOS is even much older than what you've got right now.

 

Now, if you bought an older printer or one using a common deskjet engine, well, then the support would have been there.

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Mandriva released 2009 one week after I finished upgrading my system from 2006 to 2008. Given the lengthy errata list I decided to stick with 2008.1 since I am looking for stability instead of bleeding edge. It took me a couple of weeks to do the upgrade to 2008 because this computer is a computer in daily use by several people and not just a plaything for keeping on the bleeding edge of Linux.

 

The reason for buying a newer printer is that the older printers disappear from the shelves after about 6 months and are no longer available.

 

I find it both discouraging and encouraging that the answer to the question "How do I upgrade my printer driver?" is "Upgrade your entire OS". It is discouraging because it takes two weeks (or more depending on disasters) to get the upgrade done. It is encouraging because it means that our little enclave of specialists is not going to be invaded any time soon by a bunch of Mom an Pop households who just want to print stuff.

 

The longer we can push off the Linux takeover of the desktop the longer we can enjoy our exclusive situation and the lack of adware, malware, and viruses that come along with mass acceptance.

 

Sorry if this sounds a bit bitchy, but I bother with Linux in order to use it not just to own the latest and greatest stuff. The Linux community still seems to believe that the point of Linux is just to mess with it.

 

Every Linux upgrade I have done so far has been a long and painful project. It involves some steep learning curves for the family who have to relearn a bunch of stuff every time I do it. I don't have the patience to do that every couple of months.

 

Hmmmm. Maybe I will go research old printers. Perhaps I can get one really cheap because nobody wants them any more.

 

Thanks for the help anyway.

 

Linux still rocks, but I am thinking about buying a Mac. :wall:

Banjo

(_)=='=~

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I thought I would keep this thread alive for a bit more just to see if I can give back to the community after my snippy answer yesterday.

 

Before I go and upgrade the entire OS just to get a newer printer driver I thought I would see if I could download the source for HPLIP and build it from scratch. This is not a simple thing to do since it depends on a bunch of development tools that are not normally installed. I took my directions from here:

 

HPLIP Installation Instructions for Mandriva

 

I went for the manual installation instead of the automatic since I dislike downloading a script and then giving it my root password and let 'er rip! It would not have worked anyway because some of the packages in their list are not there or failed to install. I did manage to get the driver to configure and compile after a couple of hours of work. I basically ran ./configure iteratively and then took care of one error at a time as it bailed out. Here is what I had to install for dependencies:

 

I installed foomatic-db since I knew it was required for operation.

./configure --disable-network-build --disable-pp-build --enable-fax-build --enable-dbus-build --enable-gui-build --enable-qt3 --disable-qt4 --enable-scan-build --enable-doc-build --enable-foomatic-ppd-install --disable-foomatic-drv-install --disable-hpijs-only-build --prefix=/usr

I answered each problem by installing the following through Mandrake Control
center:

error: "cannot find libjpeg support" - installed libjpet62
error: cannot find net-snmp support (or --disable-network-build) - installed libnet-snmp-devel
libnet-snmp-devel-5.4.1-5.1mdv2008.1.i586 it failed, so I disabled network-build
error: cannot find libcups support - installed libcups2-devel
error: cannot find libusb support - libusb-devel
error: cannot find python-devel support - Installed
libpython2.5-devel-2.5.2-2.2mdv2008.1.i586
python-imaging-1.1.6-3mdv2008.1.i586
error: cannot find sane-backends-devel support (or --disable-scan-build) install
libsane1-devel-1.0.19-3mdv2008.1.i586
error: cannot find dbus-devel support: No package 'dbus-1' found
libdbus-1-devel-1.1.20-5.1mdv2008.1.i586

 

I am installing this over a Mandy 2008.1 from the Mandriva One live CD.

 

When I ran 'make', the drivers compiled with no errors. I have not actually installed the drivers yet because I still have not chosen a printer. I also have to understand more about how installing something from source will be related to the package database, for example, do I have to uninstall HPLIP 2.8.2 before manually installing this compiled 2.8.9.

 

Thanks to all for the expert help here.

My P.O. for that Mac is on hold again :lol2:

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Pls don't mark this [solved] because I don't have a printer working yet. I will update as events unfold.... unless I trash this computer... and then I will be disconnected. :blink:

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