Friday, March 24, 2017

Printer HP LaserJet Pro MFP M130fw

Sorry for the long silence on this channel. There were so many things on my plate, I had no time sharing any of my latest IT (Linux) adventures.

For my place in TO (Toronto, Ontario), I thought it might be important to finally upgrade my IT with a printer. And talking printer, I envisioned a laser printer, for documents and boarding passes ;-)
There was a sales campaign with HP going on. So, I ended up with buying a relatively recent model, which is able to also scan (copy and fax).

My IT in Toronto is all based on Linux Mint 18.1 MATE. The printer, being a recent model, is not (yet) supported in Linux. However, the model is also a cloud printer. So, while I wait for native support, I linked it up to hpeprint, which allows for printing PDFs by sending emails to hpeprint.com.

Concerning scanning, a similar email based approach can be selected. However, the printer can connect to SMB-shares on Linux Mint.

In order to configure the printer, connect to its web-server using it IP address. I recommend to assign an address in your router's DHCP-server.

Now that we are talking SAMBA (SMB), I might just drop a few word about Linux Mint's caja-share file browser's inability to connect to shares.
This is not a fault of caja-share. It is not a fault of the samba-server in Linux Mint.
The problem lays in the file /etc/samba/smb.conf ... locate this:
# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
        workgroup = workgroup
        name resolve order = bcast hostand add the line in boldface.
Don't forget to restart your smbd!
Having done that, not only Linux Mint computers will be able to share directories, also the HP LaserJet MFP M130 will be able to connect to the shares and depose files in said shares.

Taking it back to the printing aspect of the HP device. Installing cloud services was working fine in my environment. While the "All-in-One Remote" and "HP ePrint" apps are working fine on my Android phone, the HP Print Plugin is unable to locate the printer in my network...