HP Printers (Laser Jet Pro MFP M28a) on Linux

Sometimes is complex to find a good printer that can work also with linux, but HP printers seams a good choice: this is a guide to configure your HP printer on linux.

Unfortunatly not all the printers work on linux but HP driver seams to work with the whole catalog.

I test this guide to my HP Laser Jet Pro MFP M28a but it probably work on all HP Printers.

Connect printer to your PC

Start your printer and wait that some noise from the printer stop.

Connect the usb printer to the usb.

This because it is possible that you do not see it if you do not wait the complete boot of the printer.

Linux Mint standard configuration

If you need only to print and you have Linux Mint you can install it by integrated Printer manger, if this is not your case go to the following point.

Open Printers app from gui or run:

system-config-printer

Press add button, select the correct usb and follow the installer by selecting your specific printer brand and model.

Hp Specific driver

A more generic idea is to install hplip:

sudo apt install hplip

End setup your printer with his utility:

hp-setups

select the USB configuration and click next

You shold see listed the printer, select and click next.

Click add printer and you finish the procedure.

Now you can print from your UI or from command line with:

hp-print

Plugin for Scanner

If your printer has a scanner or other functionality you must install the plugin.

Download it from there or simply do the following command:

http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/auxfiles/HP/plugins/hplip-3.20.11-plugin.run

After start the hp-plugin utility

hp-plugin

Select manually the downloaded pluging and follow the installation.

Now you can do scan with Simple Scan or with command line by:

hp-scan -f /tmp/output.png

GUI

If you want a gui with an applet to manage your printer you can install the following

sudo apt install hplip-gui

Conclusions

The HP Laser Jet Pro MFP M28a printer seams work well, also the scanner however it is low resolution (max 300dpi) and slow. The product in general is very good for home use but it is not very professional.

HP printer with his utility is interesting because it can work on linux! I think that all thing shuld work better and easily on linux and the only friction can be the badness of companies.

Follow the linux way!