HP Photosmart C7280 with Ubuntu
6 04 2008You’ve got to love HP for their printer support under Linux. It’s unmatched as far as I can tell. Well I just picked up an HP Photosmart C7280 printer/copier/fax machine. It’s listed here as compatible with HPLIP and sure enough it worked out of the box, well almost. HPLIP wasn’t giving me the correct driver when I was trying to set it up. I found out I needed to install the hpijs-ppds package. Then I tried again and I was given the correct driver. I have it hooked up wirelessly. Yes this printer is wireless! 
HP Toolbox contains a load of tools from fax stuff to scanning and everything in between. And I can access this printer from any of the computers on my little network. 
Another great new hardware experience in Linux.
I say that if you don’t want a hardware nightmare in Linux do your research first. 
I have one of those.
Thanks for your support of HPLIP! We greatly appreciate all feedback and comments.
All the best!
Aaron
So - everything works? Scanning over LAN and WLAN too? How about duplex printing?
With linux, I’ve grown used to “working” having shades of grey. So I want to be sure what working means here before I lay out $200.
Thank you for this post.
Yes, scanning works over the LAN and WLAN.
I haven’t tried duplex printing though.
If you’re using Hardy you should only need to install the hpijs-ppds package. If you’re using Gutsy though, you need to enable the Backports and upgrade hplip since the version that comes with Gutsy is too old and install the hpijs-ppds.
I can’t say the same. I took the printer and configured the network wirelessy (no cable at all), the printer recognized the router and says it’s connected to the network, but I can install it on my PCs. Does it have to be wire conected to any of the computers or it’s supposed to work if it communicates with the router via WiFi?
It should work regardless of whether it’s wired or not. Make sure you have the hpijs-ppds package installed along with hplip-gui. You can’t set this up through the regular printer configuration tool. It needs to be setup through HPLIP Toolbox.
Woot! Thanks for the help, mine is up and running beautifully (and wirelessly)!
How on earth do you get to the HPLIP Toolbox?
Simple do
sudo apt-get install hplip-gui
You can then find it under System→Preferences→HPLIP Toolbox