How to Install HP Printer Drivers on Ubuntu Linux

This post describes steps one can take to install additional printer drivers in Ubuntu Linux.

When you want the latest HP printer drivers on Ubuntu, you’ll download and install the latest HP Linux Imaging and Printing (HPLIP) driver package. Updated versions of this package are regularly released with support for the latest HP printers.

HP is one of the printer manufacturers that has its own driver package for Linux, including Ubuntu. The driver package is maintained by the open-source community but has HP full support.

HP Linux printer’s driver package is known as HP Linux Imaging and Printing (HPLIP) and it’s updated frequently to support newer printers as they become available. If you own a new HP printer today, it will mostly work on latest version of Ubuntu desktop

However, if the printer is not supported by Ubuntu or the drivers are not installed, installing HPLIP might make the drivers available.

The current version of the software package is 3.17.11

How to install additional HP printer drivers in Ubuntu Linux

As described above, you can install additional HP printer drivers simply by downloading and installing the latest HP Linux Imaging and Printing (HPLIP) driver package.

The current driver package adds support for:

HP Scanjet Enterprise Flow N9120 fn2 Document Scanner
HP Digital Sender Flow 8500 fn2 Document Capture Workstation

The previous package, 3.17.10 added support for tons of new HP printers, including these:

HP OfficeJet Pro 7720 Wide Format All-in-One
HP DeskJet AMP All-in-One Printer
HP OfficeJet 5220 All-in-One Printer
HP OfficeJet 5230 All-in-One Printer
HP OfficeJet 5232 All-in-One Printer
HP ENVY Photo 6220 All-in-One Printer
HP ENVY Photo 6232 All-in-One Printer
HP ENVY Photo 7120 All-in-One Printer
HP ENVY Photo 7134 All-in-One Printer
HP ENVY Photo 7820 All-in-One Printer

So as you can see, there are lots of new printers on the list that the drivers provide support for. To see the complete list of printers that are supported, read the release notes page here.

To install the drivers on Ubuntu desktop, run the commands below to get the

cd /tmp && wget

Then run the commands below to install the driver package.

sh hplip-3.17.11.run

The installation wizard should start up and help you install the drivers. Type y to begin the installation.

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.17.11)
HPLIP Installer ver. 5.1

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Installer log saved in: hplip-install_Sun-19-Nov-2017_11:23:08.log

note: Defaults for each question are maked with a '*'. Press  to accept the default.
error: ubuntu-17.10 version is not supported, so all dependencies may not be installed. However trying to install using ubuntu-17.04 version packages.

Press 'y' to continue auto installation. Press 'n' to quit auto installation(y=yes, n=no*): y

Then a to choose the automatic installation mode

INSTALLATION MODE
-----------------
Automatic mode will install the full HPLIP solution with the most common options.
Custom mode allows you to choose installation options to fit specific requirements.

Please choose the installation mode (a=automatic*, c=custom, q=quit): y

Continue with installation for the version of Ubuntu. After a few minutes, the installation should complete.

When prompted whether to install missing dependencies, type y

The installer may prompt you to remove existing HPLIP drivers to install the newer one. Please choose to do that to continue.

After few minutes, the new drivers should be installed and ready to use.

To install new printer, follow the steps below:

Ubuntu Linux has a centralized location for majority of its settings. From system configurations to creating new users and updating, all can be done from the System Settings panel.