Help installing printer driver Ubuntu 14.04

[The_Eric]

I installed 14.04 on an old HP laptop for our shop shop's computer, upgrading from 12.04 because I think that the install of 12.04 may have been botched. It would always pop up with "System problem detected" and when you clicked on report, nothing would happen. You couldn't get it update or anything... Also wouldn't install the new printer we got either. In fact, it would just lock that window up. So I stuck 14.04 on there hoping that it would cure it. The other problems have gone away so far, but I am still unable to install the printer. At least now I get about one or two steps farther, but still, the end result is the same.

So now what can I do?

Here is a picture of what's going on.

 

[Ken42]

What printer?

 

[The_Eric]

You would have to ask. I'm away from it right now- I'll have to report in the morning. For now, all I can tell you is that it's an HP desk jet.

Why does it stop working/doing anything when it gets to the "installing driver open printing-gutenpoint" part?

 

[Darwin1138]

Is it a 64 bit install??

I had the same problem with an Epson printer, the thing is that the drivers are 32 bit and in the 64 bit version they excluded some 32 bit dependencies, so you need to install the missing code or patch your 32 bit drivers.

But without the model number, is like shooting in the dark

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: The_Eric
You would have to ask. I'm away from it right now- I'll have to report in the morning. For now, all I can tell you is that it's an HP desk jet.

There's a list of HP printers and their Linux status here. If it's on the list as a fully supported printer, you should need to install essentially nothing and it will be plug and play. That's the way my HP LaserJet P1505 has been for the last three versions of Ubuntu and the version of Mint I'm running, across two different desktop computers.

Isn't gutenprint installed by default? Note that there are several HP packages in the repositories, and something from there may work better for you. As you say, you need to get us some more information, but assuming this printer is properly compatible (a lot of the extreme entry level HP stuff was not), we should be able to get it going.

 

[eljefino]

It's possible you could "wrap" a windows driver... Linux snobs hate this b/c it's not open source. D/L the windows driver and point this at the local files. You could also try the other check boxes.

 

[uc50ic4more]

HP has a very comprehensive set of drivers and are arguably the most Linux-friendly big manufacturer. I am not sure why Ubuntu is steering you towards the Gutenprint drivers. Get us the model and we'll see if we can't hook you up with the driver.

 

[The_Eric]

It's an HP Officejet Pro 8610.

 

[Rand]

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softw...ct=5367608#N181

select linux from dropdown box

If its not already selected

 

[The_Eric]

Rand, you got it! Thank you for the link- it was dumbed down enough that even I could navigate it...

I think we should be good to go now.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
I am not sure why Ubuntu is steering you towards the Gutenprint drivers.

I was wondering the same thing. Oddly enough, I checked in Mint, and I've got some gutenprint stuff installed by default, although I certainly never came across anything remotely like the screen in this thread.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
I am not sure why Ubuntu is steering you towards the Gutenprint drivers.

I was wondering the same thing. Oddly enough, I checked in Mint, and I've got some gutenprint stuff installed by default, although I certainly never came across anything remotely like the screen in this thread.


Just today I installed a Brother 1435 and Ubuntu "recommended" Gutenprint, too! I actually had a few problems printing with the Gutenprint driver and ended up going with the CUPS driver instead, and everything is 100% now.

 

[Garak]

The only moderate issue I had with Mint and printing was the fonts and page setup weren't quite the way I wanted. I did some fussing with the drivers, setting it up the same way I had in older versions of Ubuntu, and everything was perfect once again.

 

[The_Eric]

FWIW, when I was in stalling the new driver from the link that Rand provided, it said that Ubuntu 14.04 comes with X.XX.X driver package and that this particular printer requires a slightly newer driver package. Not sure if it has any relevance to Ubuntu trying to install that Gutenpoint driver?

 

[Garak]

That may very well be it, or it just automatically "prefers" the driver, like using the open source nVidia stuff by default versus the proprietary stuff.