1.9 KiB
Printing
This guide explains how to set up printing and scanning on Arch Linux.
Note
This guide is still WIP and isn't very informative, I wrote it just as a quick reference for myself.
Note
This guide focuses on HP brand printers. If you have a printer from another brand, you will not be able to fully follow it.
Installing
First, we'll need to install and enable cups, which is the printing daemon for
Linux.
sudo pacman -S --needed cups
systemctl enable --now cups
HP printers
You'll want to use hplip if you're using an HP brand printer.
sudo pacman -S --needed hplip
Note
You will only want to use the hplip package for terminal based interactions.
Hplip should support UI too, however, it uses Qt 4, for which the necessary libraries are no longer shipped by pacman, as it's incredibly outdated. It is technically possible to install these through the AUR, but due to the nature of some of the dependencies for these outdated libraries, it would mean having to install python2 and a bunch of related packages.
Additionally, because hplip was written for very early python 3, you are likely to see a lot of warnings when you run most commands. That said, the commands should work, as these are just warnings.
Aren't drivers written by big companies that have no clue about Linux just the best?
To set up your printer, run:
sudo hp-setup -i
This will register the printer with CUPS and you should now be able to pick it in the printing dialog.
Scanning
To get scanning support, you will need to have sane:
sudo pacman -S sane
If you're using hplip, you can now trigger a scan with the following command:
hp-scan -o scan.png
Tip
If the specified filename ends with