HP OfficeJet with Red Hat Linux 9

 HP OfficeJet with Red Hat Linux 9

This is a short description of how to get an HP OfficeJet all-in-one device to work with Red Hat Linux 9.

1. Red Hat Linux 9 comes with the software you need, although there are some bugs. First of all, make sure you have the following packages installed from the CD:

   • hpoj
   • redhat-config-printer-gui
   • libsane-hpoj (for scanning)

   As shipped, the hpoj package trips over a perl bug concerning UTF-8 (bug #82652). This bug causes the error 'obsolete configuration file format'.

   The rawhide version of hpoj works around this. Fetch the package (hpoj-[...].i386.rpm) and install it using: "rpm -Fvh hpoj-*.i386.rpm" in a terminal as root. If you have an /etc/init.d/hpoj.rpmnew file, make sure to rename it with: "mv -f /etc/init.d/hpoj.rpmnew /etc/init.d/hpoj".

   [Another work-around is to set the LANG environment variable to 'C' before starting the hpoj service.]

2. As shipped, the printer configuration tool has no knowledge of how to interact with hpoj.

   This is corrected in an updated version. You can use up2date to fetch the fixed packages you need.

3. An extra step is necessary before the printer configuration tool will be able to set up your multifunction device (bug #88086)

   First of all you will need to become the root user with 'su -', run 'service hpoj setup' in a terminal, and follow the instructions.

   Then run 'chkconfig hpoj on' and 'service hpoj start'.

After following these steps, you should now be able to use the printer configuration tool (System Settings->Printing from the Red Hat menu) to set up a queue for your printer.

If you want to use the scan function, install the libsane-hpoj package. You can scan using XSane directly (Graphics->Scanning from the Red Hat menu) or, if you want to alter the scanned image, as a GIMP plug-in (File->Acquire from the GIMP menu bar).

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