Connecting a HP Laserjet M130fw Printer

[WBR]

Be not fooled by Hewlett Packard's much-ballyhooed printer Open Source Software claims. I just bought a new HP LaserJet MFP M130fw printer (multifunction printer/scanner/fax), when my much beloved HP-1000 printer died in the middle of printing the review copy of my tax return, necessitating a hurried purchase at Best Buy. I buy printers so infrequently that I had forgotten the promise I had made to myself after buying my last printer: that the next printer would be able to print Postscript, natively.

The new printer installed without a hiccup on my Windows 7 and Windows XP (!) machines. The printer is connected to my network over the WiFi. Both of these computers are connected over Ethernet.

I then tried for many hours to figure out how to get my Linux box (also connected over Ethernet, and running Mint Mate 17.3) to use the printer. (All I wanted to do was to be able to print from the Linux box.) The box would see the printer and try to print to it, but nothing ever showed up in the printer's output tray.

I tried connecting the Linux box to the printer over USB. No joy.

I tried downloading the latest ‘hplip’ from the HP site. Problem is that I could not build it on my existing Mate 17.3, because it was missing a bunch of dependencies. (I tried to install them and wound up making my system crash. A Clonezilla image restore fixed that.) It did not help that the HP site does not support my printer model.

I subscribe to Linux Format magazine, which comes with a DVD with the latest Distros each month. I tried Ubuntu 16.1 and Mate 18.1. Both had the latest HP software, but still no joy.

Eventually I decided to look for the word 'proprietary' on HP's site. I had seen this word next to HP printer models which appeared to be close to my printer's number (“requires proprietary plug-in”), and had made the silly (with 20-20 hindsight) assumption that the HP printer GUI (which I had downloaded at some point) would install it itself, or at least tell me to install it. The HP site directed me to a page which talked about ‘hp-plugin’. I found, with some experimentation, that I could run this from the command line, as root:

hp-plugin -i

where “-i” means interactive; and then select ‘d’ for download.

Of course it would not work with Mate 17.3, as the program apparently requires that the versions of HP’s software match up. But I could run it with my Live Ubuntu 16.1 and later, Live Mate 18.1 Distros. When that was successfully run, I could install my printer, select a model number close to what I have (making sure that the model selected mentioned “hpcups”, presumably for PCL, as opposed to Postscript) and voilà! the printer printed like a charm, even over the network (without the USB connection).

I then upgraded my Mint 17.3 to 18.1, installed the proprietary driver with ‘hp-plugin’, and the printer now works perfectly.

As they say: That was Easy.

(A side note: when I was trying the Live Distros, I did not correct the locale. The printer would then request A4 paper when I tried to print anything, which I could override on the printer’s touchscreen. When I did actually upgrade, I select my East Coast US locale, and the printer then happily used the standard US 8.5" x 11" paper.)

[pdc_2]

thanks; that's a mighty fine looking printer/MFD that you have there; from the reviews, http://www.pcmag.com/review/352139/hp-l ... mfp-m130fw it is hot off the press; and I can't find it in hplip!! ...... the list I access skips from the 127fw to the 132fw but the latter needs 3.16.11 .... which is newer than even Mint 18.1

when someone will report a problem installing a printer from any other manufacturer, there are those who are passionate for HP; and they may well advise the poster to just buy HP: saying they always work; this is perhaps a salutory tale of difficulties with any printer; you did very well to very patiently explore multiple options and get it all working: well done!! and thanks for the documentation on this: it may well help others: I will continue to look to see when your M130fw appears on the Laserjet list in the supported devices of hplip!! ......... as you say, you had to "select a model number close to what I have "

[WBR]

Perhaps I should have mentioned that the model I chose from the Printer Manufacturer drop down list was the 'HP Laserjet Pro MFP m128fw', which shows up in the Printer Properties box as 'HP-Laserjet-MFP-M129-M134'.

Not a clue what difference it would make, were I able select my actual model number, which, I believe, will have to wait for me to upgrade to the next version of Mint...

[pdc_2]

your M130fw does not seem to be acknowledged yet by HP; in its documentation and links on the hplip website

[lbunch]

WBR,
I had the same problem and discounted the plug-in solution because HP's list of supported printers says the M130 does not need a plug in.
However, after reading this post, running hp-plug-in -i solved the problem immediately. Thanks for spelling out your entire process.