Newbie Printing question

[mikeosjti]

New to Linux and have installed both Redhat WS, Fedora and Ubuntu.

I have a network attached HP Officejet 73xx printer which I am unable to configure or attach. Linux does not auto detect the printer (albeit I can ping it), and I need to add a URI for CUPS to use it. I have no clue what URI to use and the research I have done suggests I must execute a command 'hp-makeuri'. However it's not installed on my system and part of the HPLIB package.

Forgive the frustrated question here, but it strikes me that something as simple as printing to a network printer should be as easy as (if not easier) than disovering my DVD RW (which it does fine). Further research reveals I'm supposed to download (via sourceforge?) a package. I've done this, but it's not an RPM? So I'm supposed to compile and build the RPM?

All this to get my network printer working? I must be missing something.

Any advice appreciated...

Regards,

Mike O

[rossheth]

You can get hplip by doing yum install hplip There's a tutorial on the hplip website and another one on this forum that should help you.

[mikeosjti]

Ross,

Thanks for your reply. I'll look into 'yum' (where is the hplip web site?).

Is this an unusual thing I'm atttempting? This seems fairly rudimentary. Or did I fail to install something (neither RH nor Fedora had this RPM, but Ununtu does).

Thanks again.

[rossheth]

The hplip website is here (http://hplip.sourceforge.net/) . Look for 'Installation Instructions', on the left side. You want the cups method. And no it isn't unusual: but before you can use HP printers, you need to set up the driver.

EDIT: DON'T follow hp's instructions for installing the driver! Just do yum install hplip instead of step 3. Then proceed with the setup

EDIT2:This (http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=91511&highlight=printer) is another FC-centric tutorial.