If you a lucky you will turn on your printer and it will be automatically recognized. But, if like me, it is not, then there are some steps you have to take.
First of all, everything I will tell you only applies to HP printers (which is the type of printer you should buy for your Ubuntu computer).
The program you are going to use is called hplip. Now the program is already installed, so you could use it in the terminal and type all kind of codes. I am a gui guy, gui stands for graphical user interface. It is what most people are comfortable using, Well hplip has a gui. If it is not installed, you will have to install it yourself.
Installing the gui for hplip is easy. Go to Applications and click on Ubuntu Software Center. You want to install hplips and hplip toolbox. In Ubuntu 10.04 hplip is install and the hplip toolbox is not. You will want both of them installed.
Once they are installed, you will want to start them. First of all make sure your printer is on. Then go to system > Preferences > and click on HPLIP Toolbox. If no printer is installed, it will pop up a menu to install one. You can also press Device > Setup Device. If your printer is connected via USB, you would choose the first option. Click next and it will search for the printer. Choose your printer and click next to finish the install.
That’s should be all there is to it. It will also work on Linux Mint.
