Saturday, August 7, 2010

Configuring and Installing HP Photosmart C4780 in Fedora 13

Yesterday I bought a HP Photosmart C4780. I didn't have many options because this multifunction device was the only in the shelf so my decision was obvious. However, I don't have any regrets since HP is characterized for its support to the open source community and thus it provides drivers for Linux systems, including my FC 13.

The installation procedure was almost straightforward and can be summarized in two parts, printer and scanner configuration.

The steps associated with the printer configuration were those:
  1. Verify that you have installed CUPS in your Linux system
  2. Execute the following command as root:
    yum install hplip-common hplip-gui hplip-libs hplip hpijs
  3. Go to http://www.hplib.net and download the latest version of hplip. At this time, it is hplib-3.10.6.tar.gz. Despise you have already installed the hplib software, the required driver is not still available in your system. So untar the following files, as follows:
    tar xfz hplip-3.10.6.tar.gz hplip-3.10.6/ppd/hpijs/hp-photosmart_c4700_series-hpijs.ppd.gz hplip-3.10.6/ppd/hpcups/hp-photosmart_c4700_series.ppd.gz
Now, as root, run the 'run-setup' command. This program was installed during the yum procedure. This program will guide you through three basic steps. The former questions can be ignored but the last page will ask you about the driver. Select anyone of the files obtained in the step 3. Now, the wizard will ask you for restarting the cups service, do it.

Now, point your browser at http://localhost:631, add a new printer and select the "HP Photosmart C4700 series" option. Then, continue the configuration procedure as usual.
Verify that everything is ok, printing the test page :-D

For enabling the scanning procedure, I did execute the following steps:
  1. yum install gnome-scan gnome-scan-libs
  2. yum install libsane-hpaio
I did try "Scanner Utility" and "Simple Scan" applications from my gnome menu but none of them did the trick. So, I was looking around for a command line starting with the 'scan' word and I found it, scanimage.
Like other command line tools is not intuitive at all but its help output is, in fact, very helpful. My command line to scan a sheet is as follows:
  • scanimage -d hpaio:/usb/Photosmart_C4700_series?serial=CN04HM20GK05HD > salida.png

The parameter -d hpaio:/usb/Photosmart_C4700_series?serial=CN04HM20GK05HD indicates the device that will be used for scanning. The standard output would be redirected towards a PNG file, salida.png. Now, use your regular image viewer to see the results.

Any comments please let me know.


2 comments:

Peter Young said...

I can now enjoy my photo printing with this configuration.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the article! I just thought I'd point out that the website is hplip.net, not hplib.net. Thanks again!