How to install your HP printer drivers in Ubuntu 18.04

HP printer

Although it is increasingly rare to use 2D printers with scanning, there are many areas and many sectors where you still need to have a good printer working and printing documents that cannot or should not be scanned.

One of the most famous and popular printer brands is HP or Hewlett-Packard. These printers are all over the world and it is the wholesale manufacturer worldwide, so surely more than one of you has been in the need to install an HP printer on an Ubuntu computer. Below we show you how to do it in Ubuntu 18.04. Currently there are two methods to install an HP printer in Ubuntu. One of them is do it with generic drivers that will use the basic functions of the HP printer, this installation is achieved by going to Configuration -> Devices -> Printers and in the panel we press the button «Add Printer»; This will start a configuration wizard to install a generic driver for the HP printer that we select. But HP has been working with Free Software for years and released a long time ago an exclusive driver for Gnu / Linux and for Ubuntu. This is known as HPLIP.

Printer Device

First we have to download this driver. Once we have downloaded it, we open a terminal in the folder where it is and we write the following:

chmod +x hplip-3.18.04.run && ./hplip-3.18.04.run

This will begin the installation of the HP printer on our Ubuntu system. During the installation it will ask us questions that we have to answer with Y in case of Yes or N in case of No. Eye! The numbering that follows the word hplip la we have to adjust to the package that we have downloaded or else it won't work.

Now we will have our HP printer installed in Ubuntu and that means that we can use it to print documents that we have edited or created with our Ubuntu.


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  1.   Fernando Robert Fernandez said

    This software includes a very useful extension called "HP TOOLBOX" that gives you information about the ink levels in the cartridges. Highly recommended.

  2.   I go nich said

    Speaking of Ubuntu 18, how unlucky that there is no 32-bit version?

  3.   Charly said

    ubuntu mate 18.04 if you have a 32-bit version

  4.   Jorge Garcia said

    Perfect, with the generic driver the printer stopped working when I went from Ubuntu 16.04 to Ubuntu 18.04 and with hplip-3.19.1:
    https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/gethplip
    I have recovered it.

  5.   Edgar williams said

    I have a hp notebook but I can't install the Wi-Fi drivers, honestly the 10 version is running at 18.4. Can anybody help me?

  6.   Antonio said

    When I type chmod + x hplip-3.18.04.run && ./hplip-3.18.04.run in terminal it tells me that the file does not exist:

    marina @ marina-X550WAK: ~ / Downloads $ chmod + x hplip-3.18.04.run && ./hplip-3.18.04.run
    chmod: 'hplip-3.18.04.run' cannot be accessed: File or directory does not exist

    marina @ marina-X550WAK: ~ / Downloads $

    1.    Gerardo said

      Hello Antonio, you must adjust in the text, the version of hplip that you downloaded, I now download from the link, and the version is 3.16.7

  7.   Luis Gonzalez said

    When installing it as it says, it asks me for a superuser password, I enter mine and it does not accept it. What key is that?

  8.   Carlos Luis Villalobos said

    I have Ubuntu 18.04 and I downloaded the hplip-3.16.7 driver but it asks me to have the Ubuntu 16.04 distribution.

  9.   Andrew Giraldo said

    Uff great. You got me out of a tight spot. So far I start in Linux and it has not been easy to configure some things as I did in Windows.
    Although it is just custom, patience and experience to google a little with what you need and according to the distribution you have installed, in my case ubuntu 20.04 I found hplip 3.20.5 to configure my hp photosmart c4780 printer.

  10.   DiegoC said

    The link to download the driver has changed, now it is https://sourceforge.net/projects/hplip/
    Thanks for the post

  11.   Gaby said

    I comment. I bought a hp laser 107a printer and I was able to install it to an ubuntu 18.04 with the following driver "HP Laser Ns 1020, hpcups 3.19.6", but not before updating the hplip, what a coincidence from version "3.19.6", From hplip, you can find this driver that is compatible with the printer I bought. The manufacturer of hp does not have this driver available for linux, it is handled by hplip that works in conjunction with the company HP.
    Something important that hp does is send you to Hplip to check the version and see the printers added in each version of hplip ... as if everything were magic, as of linux ubuntu 19.10 you can find this printer in the hplip of your machine. That is, if you have versions prior to Ubuntu 19.10, you will have to download the new version by hand as the companion above teaches.
    I hope it will be of help to you for this printer. I leave the ".run" below.
    https://sourceforge.net/projects/hplip/files/hplip/3.19.6/hplip-3.19.6.run/download

  12.   ana said

    Hello, copying the command, changing the number of the drivers package, etc ... it tells me that the file does not exist, I am a bit desperate since I have been with this for days. I have an HP laserjet Pro M15a and my computer is Ubuntu 16.04

    Help pleaseee! Thanks in advance