Installing an all in one printer device in Debian (Lenny)

My experience installing the same printer on Mandriva. Upack the printer, connect printer to power, connect printer to computer via USB2 cable, load printer with paper. Power printer on. Wait while Mandriva recognises printer, wait while Mandriva installs printer drivers, wait while Mandriva prints test page. Open document in OO.o select print, wait while document is printed. Boring.

It was rather easy with Ubuntu Gutsy also. One interesting feature of that model is that it has a built-in web server where you can monitor it status and operate the scanner so Sane support is not really needed.

> I wonder why he chose Debian for this test.

That's probably just the distribution he uses. I wouldn't be likely to install a new distribution just to see how it handles a new printer, would you?

What about the scanner, Tracyanne?

It is screwy that SANE still wants root for scanners, and you have to jump through such loony hoops to set them up. It's like an abusive boss; you need root to set the darned thing up, you need a Special Group, and then it warns you that using root for scanners is unsafe, scary, and dangerous. OMG eek.

I have this same printer.

I installed debian 4.0 and the hplip utilities were included in the install.

I ran them and selected the correct printer model and it worked.

I had the printer before the install, so maybe dpkg detected my printer and installed the hpjis driver and hplip toolbox for me. I wonder if a dpkg-reconfigure hpjis or dpkg-reconfigure hplip would have detected the printer.

If you are going to use debian you have to learn the command line tools. Otherwise take Tracyanne's advice and use a distro like Mandriva. SuSE is also good at hardware detection.

Or you can use MEPIS..... :)

The author's problems weren't with the printer, but with the SCANNER.

> It is screwy that SANE still wants root for scanners,...

I've seen some exceptions, but normally all you need is to be in the scanner group, which should be added when you create the user account.

As jhansonxi noted, many HP devices now include a web server, and you can access the scanning functions from there, so you don't even need to set up Sane unless you want to.

I haven't given Lenny a try yet. I'm currently running Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit on my Athlon64 system. It has 2 GB of RAM, a 256 MB AGP GeForce 6200 (EVGA), a 320 GB IDE Hard Drive (seriously.... until the bottleneck inside the hard drive is overcome, which is becoming the case with solid state drives.... SATA is pointless to me), DVD/CD-RW combo drive, Dell widescreen LCD (hey.... it was under $300.... the price was right... now if only I could find a cheap replacement for my craptacular DVI cable.... color artifacts on the screen at random is not fun).

I need to hook my printer up again soon though. :)

I can't remember if I had to add myself to the scanner group or not, but scanning works through the HPlip tools.

And yes my Mepis install detected the printer just fine. No problems there.

Now I admit that keeping a Debian Sid system up to date for several years will cause the occasional "interesting times", but scanning worked a few months ago, then stopped working.

Sure enough, not in the scanner group. Group added, scanning works.

Now, if only such things would be automatic for _existing_ users. Ho hum. I should have thought of that before now.

Quoting:I've seen some exceptions, but normally all you need is to be in the scanner group, which should be added when you create the user account.

That's what happens on Mandriva, at least it must, I'll have to check, because I've never had problems with SANE wanting root.

@thenixedreport

You might try adding a cable ferrite a la:

http://www.ce-mag.com/archive/02/11/may.html

if you can find one that opens and can be placed over the cable. I recommend putting it as close to the side that the signal goes to as possible / practical.