Tip Top Tips: Installing HP Printers That Require The Proprietary Plugin

Editor's Note: Tip Top Tips is a semi-monthly column in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Periodically, we will feature -- and possibly even expand upon -- one tip from the PCLinuxOS forum. The magazine will not accept independent tip submissions specifically intended for inclusion in the Tip Top Tips column. Rather, if you have a tip, share it in the PCLinuxOS forum's “Tips & Tricks” section. Your tip just may be selected for publication in The PCLinuxOS Magazine.

This month's tip comes from Agent Smith.

With the advent of HPLIP, HP's great program for installing and managing printers of that brand, the handling of these machines on Linux has become very good, even better than on windows, since on windows you always need the printer installation CD , and if it does not exist, there goes the technician search for drivers in the internet.

With HPLIP, the drivers are either integrated, or downloaded over the internet.

But, it has a peculiarity: the proprietary plugin from HP. This plugin is only installed by HPLIP. That is, you must have HPLIP installed to be able to open a terminal, invoke the hp-plugin, and install it.

However, often a new version of HPLIP has already been released (and HPLIP only installs the current version), or it is not possible to access the HP website where the plugin is downloaded and the installation does not advance.

And the tech folks go around kicking the printers and cursing the mothers of HP company owners.

If this is your case, your problems are over. You can now easily install the HP plugin without worrying about the HPLIP version or downloading it from the HP website.

Just go to this address: http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/auxfiles/HP/plugins/

All versions of the HP plugin are archived on that site, making it easier to access.

After downloading, in a terminal, give permission to run and install the plugin without needing the intervention of HPLIP.

That address saved my day, since I needed to install an HP printer that needs this plugin and via HPLIP it was not working.

I hope it helps you a lot.