cups - hp office jet pro 8500a - 12 hours of fail in Lubuntu

Links: open printing.org   scroll down for tarball link   uninstall hplip   hp-setup options
Note this may also play HEAVILY into encountered problems with Ubuntu/Lubuntu printer addition: gnome keyring fiasco

---

So a year and a half ago, I added this printer in Minislack/Zenwalk. In 2013, I'm into Lubuntu, mostly for an updated set of libraries for the time being. I know Lubuntu (so far) uses usblp for usb printers so it should go OK. One thing, I'm expecting to compile my core applications as I've already noticed from Ubuntu/Lubuntu versions of avconv and ffmpeg, that they seem to be watered down. I suppose they have to be for such a popular distribution, so I keep my expectations for this distro to having a recent set of libraries for compiling. Back to our printer story... scroll down to Pt 3 for installation.

Pt 1 Groundwork

• HPLIP has apparently changed to where it must now be compiled to get the .ppd's out of the source? (Edit 2013-03-24 after unpacking the HPLIP source, the .ppd's are available, but in a compressed "gz"format, eg "hp-officejet_pro_8500_a910.ppd". Select and use as needed (chmod 644 the file) without proceeding further with HPLIP compilation. Save both "hpcups" and the "hpijs" versions, since hpcups is new, its rasterization is different, and YMMV. If one proceeds with the HPLIP installation, the gz'ed ppd's are also placed into /usr/share/ppd/HP
• Before doing so, use Synaptic to install developer versions of libjpeg, libcups, libusb1, and libsane to avoid ./configure fails. My final HPLIP configure line was $ ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-lite-build --disable-network-build. I only needed scanning and printing, and via a USB connection.

Pt 2 errors

This make proceeded along for a while until exiting with

prnt/hpcups/CommonDefinitions.h:43:25: fatal error: cups/raster.h: No such file or directory

I installed apt-file (# apt-get apt-file find) and sought out the raster.h code. Sure enough, it was located:

$ apt-file search cups/raster.h
libcupsimage2-dev: /usr/include/cups/raster.h
lsb-build-base3: /usr/include/lsb3/cups/raster.h

So accordingly...

# apt-get install libcupsimage2-dev

...and back to the compiling. I have to hand it to whomever came up with the excellent idea of apt-file. The remainder, including # make install, appeared to go normally.

next errors

To check the installation...

$ hp-check -t
The program 'hp-check' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install hplip

Perhaps some library linking did not go well, $PATH was not updated, or files were installed into a non-standard location for the PATH or CUPS. The latter is what happened during a prior HPLIP install in 2011.

$ ls /usr/bin |grep hp
dvihp
hp-mkuri
php
php5
pitchplay

Not encouraging.

$ which hp-check
$

Not encouraging.

$ find -name hp-check
$

Not encouraging.

# service cups restart
cups stop/waiting
cups start/running, process 11411
$ hp-check -t
The program 'hp-check' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install hplip

Not encouraging.

# reboot
$ hp-check -t
The program 'hp-check' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install hplip

Not encouraging.

uninstalling HPLIP

Link: Uninstall instructions. From the installation directory...

# make uninstall
( cd '/usr/share/cups/drv/hp' && rm -f hpcups.drv )
( cd '/etc/cron.daily' && rm -f hplip_cron )
( cd '/usr/share/hal/fdi/preprobe/10osvendor' && rm -f 20-hplip-devices.fdi )
( cd '/usr/share/ppd/HP'...all ppds)
( cd '/etc/udev/rules.d' && rm -f 56-hpmud_support.rules 86-hpmud_plugin.rules 56-hpmud_add_printer.rules 55-hpmud.rules )
( cd '/usr/share/doc/...various docs.)
( cd '/usr/share/doc/hplip-3.13.3/styles' && rm -f css.css )
( cd '/usr/share/doc/hplip-3.13.3/images' && rm -f favicon.ico print.png toolbox_actions.png toolbox_fax.png toolbox_print_control.png toolbox_print_settings.png toolbox_status.png toolbox_supplies.png xsane.png )
( cd '/usr/share/doc/hplip-3.13.3' && rm -f COPYING copyright README_LIBJPG )
( cd '/usr/lib/cups/backend' && rm -f hp )
( cd '/usr/bin' && rm -f hp-mkuri )
( cd '/usr/lib/cups/filter' && rm -f hpcups )
( cd '/usr/lib/cups/filter' && rm -f hpcupsfax )
( cd '/etc/hp' && rm -f hplip.conf )

This is where HPLIP had been installed. I don't believe the HAL issue will be important, but we'll see. Additionally, from the uninstall, we have some idea what libraries were installed and why they might not have been located...

/bin/bash ./libtool --mode=uninstall rm -f usr/lib/libhpmud.la'
libtool: uninstall: rm -f /usr/lib/libhpmud.la /usr/lib/libhpmud.so.0.0.6 /usr/lib/libhpmud.so.0 /usr/lib/libhpmud.so
/bin/bash ./libtool --mode=uninstall rm -f '/usr/lib/libhpip.la'
libtool: uninstall: rm -f /usr/lib/libhpip.la /usr/lib/libhpip.so.0.0.1 /usr/lib/libhpip.so.0 /usr/lib/libhpip.so
/bin/bash ./libtool --mode=uninstall rm -f '/usr/lib/sane/libsane-hpaio.la'
libtool: uninstall: rm -f /usr/lib/sane/libsane-hpaio.la /usr/lib/sane/libsane-hpaio.so.1.0.0 /usr/lib/sane/libsane-hpaio.so.1 /usr/lib/sane/libsane-hpaio.so
( cd '/usr/lib/cups/filter' && rm -f pstotiff )

We'll see if we can get by without these libraries, eg, may not be able to do scanning. Still, simple printing, to start. A decent PPD should be sufficient.

Pt 3 Printer Installation (10 minute)

Note: "udevmonitor" is now "udevadm monitor".
1. Uncompress the ppd wherever you find it as a .ppd.gz from the HPLIP source (no need to compile HPLIP)
2. Copy it to where it can be found and chmod it.

# cp hp-officejet_pro_8500_a910.ppd /usr/share/cups/model/1sttry.ppd
# chmod 644 /usr/share/cups/model/1sttry.ppd

3. Verify you the user are in the groups lp and lpadmin, eg via "$ groups" or "# userconfig"
4. Verify the file /etc/cups/cupsd.conf has the line (or add it and restart CUPS):

FileDevice Yes

5. Run # udevadm monitor
6. Connect printer into USB, write-down dev address eg, usb:/dev/usb/lp0 that appears.
7. Be sure CUPS is running, eg # service cups restart
8. Add the printer to that USB address.

# lpadmin -p hp8500 -E -v usb:/dev/usb/lp0 -m 1sttry.ppd

9. Print, profit
10. If problems occur, see my post from 2011. You might have to uninstall the printer and try a different PPD or a different location for the PPD. The command to cancel current print jobs is # lprm -, the command to remove the printer (eg, named 'hp8500' above): # lpadmin -x hp8500. Also # lpstat -v is your friend.

One additional error

Uninstalling the HPLIP libraries earlier above did come back to bite. Everything installed properly, but when attempting to print, an error: "/usr/lib/cups/filter/hp/cups not available: No such file or directory". I then reinstalled HPLIP but installed PPD manually. Appeared all good, but print jobs gave error that printer was waiting to become available. Looked into /var/log/cups/error.log, and noted the following

The name org.freedesktop.ColorManager was not provided by any .service files

This appears to be a common error. By now, I also saw a lot others pissed off about the various security (non)interactions around loopback security and their distro. For example, this person's SuSE rant.

Incidentally, I noted that, in each case, a gnome keyring error appears, stopping communication with the printer. Apparently, a person has to hack their own laptop(!) for normal use if they use Ubuntu/Lubuntu. The roots of gnome-keyring persist into PAM, of course, and the LDAP abortion in their own system. To avoid contributing to my own productivity loss past the 12 hours already lost here, I eventually installed the HP5800a with "apt-get hplip". At some point, I will return to Slackware but, before doing so, I will attempt to euthanize gnome-keyring, PAM, and whatever other interconnected encryption garbage is in this distro when I have a few days to spare and see if a printer can be attached.

Again, adding a printer is typically a console job of 10 minutes, but I just gave up and let the immense Ubuntu RAM-killing daemon colluge do it for me after 12 lost hours. Google "cups pam" and you'll see why I gave up.

lpadmin

Lpadmin is part of CUPS and doesn't work when CUPS is not running.

GET A LIST OF PENDING PRINT JOBS BY INSTALLED PRINTER NAME

# lpstat

CANCEL ALL PENDING PRINT JOBS

# cancel -a

PRINT A TEST PAGE (eg, the man page for lpadmin)

# man lpadmin | lp -d HP8500