A New Computer -- Printing

Setting up my multi-function printer on Ubuntu has always been interesting. When I first got my printer, it was so new I had to download and build hplip, the printing subsystem.

It looks like installation is a lot easier now, but to get started you still have to go into a terminal and type:

hp-setup

That starts a GUI that easily discovered my printer on the network. Unfortunately, when I tried to install the driver, it failed with "The download of the digital signature file failed." That sucks. But wait! The server that holds the drivers is actually run by the Linux Foundation, and it was off the air because of the security breach almost a month ago.


Finally, about a week and a half later, hp-setup worked. It now brings up a GUI window and walks you through a few steps: You have to tell it whether you printer is USB, parallel or network-connected. It's not much closer to being, "It just works."