hp printer - installing latest drivers - solved

[mimosa]

My new hp laser printer seems to require hplip. Salix has hplip 3.10.2, but the latest is 3.10.9:

http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/index.html

which I have been unable to install, because of their super-user-friendly installer tied to the mainstream distro you select. Is there a generic version of this out there, or could it be updated in the repository? This isn't a case of choosing between bleeding edge and stable, just whether or not recent models are supported, and mine has been around for a good few months but won't run off hplip 3.10.2.

This is the first time I have got something like this to work in Windows (after several stressful hours) and not Salix

EDIT I've now discovered what look like relevant instructions buried on the HP website:

http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/in ... other.html

My doubt is what to do at Step 4, ./configure

These instructions for Slackware suggest something quite specific, and perhaps largely unnecessary if you don't want to do anything fancy with your printer (scanning is about all I can think of personally):

http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/in ... kware.html

I imagine the dependencies are installed, because hplip 3.10.2 is already there. And should I uninstall that before proceeding?

This has now turned into a problem rather than a suggestion - but the suggestion still stands!

[JRD]

My advice:

1. get the Slackware source from here : http://salix.enialis.net/i486/13.1/source/ap/hplip/ (or http://salix.enialis.net/x86_64/13.1/source/ap/hplip/ if you're on 64 bits OS)
2. download hplip-3.10.9.tar.xz from hplipoensource.com website
3. assure that you have also the files doinst.sh.gz, hplip.SlackBuild and slack-desc.
4. as root, run

   Code: Select all

   sh hplip.SlackBuild

5. replace the current package with the new one: upgradepkg hplip-*.txz
6. blacklist the hplip package in slapt-get/gslapt for not overwrite your own package until the new version comes in the repo.

[mimosa]

Hi JRD,

That seems to have worked, thanks, and was very easy to do. I haven't actually tested it with the printer yet (it is rather heavy to lug about) but the upgrade is now in place so it should be fine. There was a *lot* of output!

The only thing I'm not sure about is how to blacklist hplip in slapt-get?

[witek]

Are you sure upgrading hplip to version 3.10.9 from 3.10.2 is gonna solve the issue? What printer model is yours?

[mimosa]

My research suggested it might well - so it seemed a good thing to try. It's a P1102w, the newness of it lying in the w=wireless. Next time I lug it down the garden I'll find out! As you can see, I'm not even using the w ...

[mimosa]

In answer to my own question about blacklisting - am I right, as my research eventually suggested, that the way to do this is by adding to /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc?

Code: Select all

EXCLUDE=hplip*,^aaa_elflibs,^aaa_base,^devs,^glibc-.*,^kernel-.*,^udev,^rootuser-settings,^zzz-settings,.*-[0-9]+dl$,-x86_64-

Note my addition immediately after the equals sign.

[gapan]

Add:

Code: Select all

^hplip

instead. The one you used matches all packages that end with "hplip' and may carry extra "p"s at the end ("foohplippppppp" would match for example).

[mimosa]

Thanks to all for your help.