install -- HP Laserjet Pro MFP M426fdw (03f0:5a2a)

Continuing to look to scan without lines. My CCD Epsons (V30, V370) both have faint vertical lines -- still great for documents, but unacceptable for photos. Buddy let me use this HP MFD, since its printer doesn't work anymore and that's all he used it for. All I need are scan functions. 2007 vintage. Unfortunately MFD HP's require installing the entire HP print kludge (CUPS and HPLIP) just to use the scanner.

hardware

Standard USB scanner cable and power cord.

$ lsusb 03f0:5a2a HP, Inc HP LaserJet MFP M426fdw

software - driver

I took out the V370 software to prevent conflicts and put in the HP bloatware.

# pacman -Rsn iscan-plugin-perfection-v370
Packages (4) iscan-2.30.4.2-3 iscan-data-1.39.2.1-1 libstdc++5-3.3.6-9 iscan-plugin-perfection-v370-2.30.4-1

Total Removed Size: 2.75 MiB

$ yay -Ss hp printer
aur/hpoj 0.91-21 (+91 0.00) (Out-of-date: 2020-07-28)
Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet, PSC, LaserJet, and PhotoSmart printer multi-function peripherals (MFPs) drivers
$ yay -S hpoj
Packages (13) foomatic-db-engine-4:20220521-1 hplip-1:3.22.10-3 perl-alien-build-2.77-1
perl-alien-libxml2-0.19-1 perl-capture-tiny-0.48-6 perl-dbi-1.643-4
perl-ffi-checklib-0.31-2 perl-file-chdir-0.1011-4 perl-path-tiny-0.144-1
perl-xml-libxml-2.0208-1 perl-xml-namespacesupport-1.12-5 perl-xml-sax-1.02-1
perl-xml-sax-base-1.09-5

Total Download Size: 22.82 MiB
Total Installed Size: 38.80 MiB

software - printer

Use whatever lsusb provides, in this case 1 and 4. It should install with some Qt5 errors. This AUR version still runs on Qt5, when Qt6 is the current release.

$ hp-setup -i --auto 001:004
error: No module named 'PyQt5.QtCore'
error: Unable to load Qt4/Qt5 support. Is it installed?

error: No module named 'PyQt5.QtWidgets'

# pacman -S python-pyqt5

software - proprietary

1) uninstall the printer and fax using lpadmin (lookup its name in CUPS). 2) reinstall it again using hp-setup. This should work b/c you've now got all the Qt in place. After hp-setup, then 3) click the HP prompt to download their proprietary scanning file.

# lpadmin -x HP_LaserJet_MFP_M426fdw
# lpadmin -x HP_LaserJet_MFP_M426fdw_fax
$ hp-setup -i --auto 001:004

It's possible we can get a list of the files at Alternatively go HP website, which will auto-detect the OS from the browser of course. SMH. Anyway, just select the model, in this case

...which will simply bounce to the HPLIP. This is their goal. And now they don't have HPLIP in the form of an unzippable file. Now its a script that has to download the file itself. Data gathering, see?

software - proprietary plugin

The first scan activation (eg with xsane), HP's national security features arise. There is no way to anonymously scan. HP downloads a proprietary file, otherwise the scanner will not operate. A watermark unavailable to the naked eye will be added to all scans and the installer does not reveal where it installed on the system. There's no getting around it, but this is how to navigate it, hopefully without breaking your pacman index, like any 3rd party installer will. It does not say where these files are.

...and then choose the option here.