Tim Almond

I don’t use a printer much, but need it for printing the odd document, and I also like all-in-one printers for things like copying of documents that I need.

I opted for an HP Photosmart 2575. There’s quite a lot of cheap all-in-ones, but the clincher for me was that it had an ethernet connection, which gives a lot more flexibility. It can go straight into my wireless router, and any of my devices can print to it. I also found a document in Anders Jacobsen’s Blog about printing from Ubuntu Feisty.

I did a few Windows printing tests and it worked just fine and dandy. Much faster than my old one. It also has a built in web server to allow you to see ink levels.

So, I thought I’d see how it did with the instructions in Anders’ blog. First, I had to install the Control Center. This was done by adding it to the menu by right-clicking on Applications and choosing Edit Menus. I then selected System…Preferences on the left hand side and selected Control Centre.

Great, Control Centre is there, but the HPLIP toolbox isn’t. So, I go back to the Edit Menus option and add it. Which needs Python-qt3. So, I add apt-get python-qt3 and then can add HPLIP toolbox.

The HPLIP toolbox works OK. It doesn’t detect the printer on the network, so I tell it the IP address and it finds it. Some next… next…next activity and I’ve got a test print coming out.

I’m one happy bunny. This is a £65 printer from Argos that does all-in-one stuff, and I’m also able to print to it wirelessly from my Ubuntu laptop. It also looks like I can scan to Ubuntu. The Ubuntu options also allow it to read the information from a card slot.

Tags: Technology, Ubuntu //