How to configure an HP All-in-one on Vector Linux

[NL_Derek]

This is how I got my HP PSC1417 working on VL 5.9.1 SOHO. I think some of the tricks and techniques will help in similar configurations, but your mileage may vary.

I have tried to give some explanation and an indication of how to track down problems. If you find this didactic, sorry in advance. The main tools I use were find, man and good ol' google.

First we need software: CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) to handle the queues, HPLIP/HPIJS (HP Linux Imaging and Printing) to drive the printer, and SANE/XSANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) to interface with the scanner part. I used gslapt to install CUPS 1.3.7, HPLIP 2.8.5, HPIJS 2.1.4, SANE 1.0.19 and XSANE 0.994.

Now we need to mend a couple of things:

CUPS 404 problem; when you start CUPS via Vector Control Center>Utilities>CUPS you get 404 not found.
CUPS is distributed over two locations; on my system these are /usr/doc/cups-1.3.7 where index.html is located (with a symlink to /usr/doc/cups), and /usr/share/cups where various daemon data are located. On some systems these two cannot find each other. The solution is to edit (as root) /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and add the line

DocumentRoot /usr/doc/cups

HPLIPS and CUPS seem to disagree about locales -- the locale is what tells the system what language (English, French, Russian) to use. The locale also controls the character set, and if you look in /var/log/cups/error_log you may see "Unsupported character set".
This is a workaround and I hope that a guru can think of a systemic solution.
Edit (as root) /etc/profile.d/lang.sh and add the line

export LC_ALL=C

That should be enough for your printer, but unfortunately the LC_ALL change breaks vasmCC; clicking Utilities gives a "bad string conversion" The workaround is to go to /usr/share/vasmCC/utilities where the the icons are located. Look at them (more *) and you will find that some (in my case gslapt.desktop and hardinfo.desktop) contain unprintable characters, intended for the Bulgarians, Poles, Russians, Czechs, Ukrainians and similar among us. Much though I love those nationalities, I removed the unprintable lines (again, edit as root).

You need to have the CUPS daemon running;

VectorControlCenter>Service>Services, RunLevel 4, check cups and click OK.

Clever people know how to (re)start the daemon, but I just reboot.

You can install printers using KDE, using CUPS and using the HPLIP tools. I got the best results with HPLIP. Make sure your printer is switched on and connected.

As root run /usr/bin/hp-setup. Accept the defaults.

You also need to set the printer to be your default printer; start CUPS (VectorControlCenter>Service>CUPS) and it is pretty easy; Printers, Set As Default.

That's it. Your PSC should be able to print and scan. Now for a few extras....

On internet there is criticism of the quality of HPLIPS. I have to admit that the bug list of HP's Linux software is longer than the bug list of other printer manufacturers' Linux software... I wonder why?

You likely want to be able to see how much ink your printer has. HP provide a tool called hp-toolbox which has this facility. However this needs another daemon, hp-systray. I did not manage to get this working very well, but I went (as myself, not as root) to my home directory, then to ~/.kde/Autostart. I added a symbolic link (man ls) with:

ln -s /usr/bin/hp-systray hp-systray

and restart KDE. There in your SysTray is a pretty little blue HP icon; if you right-click it you can open the "HP Device Manager" (also accessible as /usr/bin/hp-toolbox) which provides several functions including the ink level. [As I test this HowTo, it doesn't work! No doubt if I restart it'll work, but I have to agree that HPLIPS is sometimes flaky. But it's better (IMHO) than the rest.]

Call to gurus: I think that hp-toolbox (including the ink level) belongs in vasmCC (as well as at user level). I was unable to get this working. I added hp-toolbox to vasmCC but never got it to work properly.

Extra: put the official CUPS icon into vasmCC. Edit (as root) /usr/share/vasmCC/service/vcupsweb.desktop. Change the Icon line to

Icon=/usr/doc/cups/favicon.ico

I wish you lots of success with Vector and HP.

--- Derek

[GrannyGeek]

With regard to "when you start CUPS via Vector Control Center>Utilities>CUPS you get 404 not found," it's been that way for a long time. You don't need to edit any files to get into CUPS. You can simply add admin after
http://localhost:631/

like this:
http://localhost:631/admin

That will get you into the CUPS screens for adding printers, modifying, printing test pages, checking jobs, etc. You could use /printers instead of /admin or any of the options available in CUPS, but it's easier to remember /admin than a variety of choices.
--GrannyGeek

[NL_Derek]

Yes, I had discovered http://localhost:631/admin but (at least on my system) I do not get all the nice icons. Editing cupsd.conf gives me CUPS with a friendlier-looking interface. I strongly recommend adding the extra line to cupsd.conf in the distro. But thanks for your reply.

--- Derek

[sparkyhall]

CUPS 404 problem; when you start CUPS via Vector Control Center>Utilities>CUPS you get 404 not found.
CUPS is distributed over two locations; on my system these are /usr/doc/cups-1.3.7 where index.html is located (with a symlink to /usr/doc/cups), and /usr/share/cups where various daemon data are located. On some systems these two cannot find each other. The solution is to edit (as root) /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and add the line

DocumentRoot /usr/doc/cups

Big thanks for this snippet of info, fixes my CUPS 404 error a treat.