This is my first topic on this forum. I’ve recently switched from using Ubuntu 24.10 to Clear Linux OS.
I’ve run into a bit of a roadblock while trying to set up my HP 4100 Series multifunction printer and scanner. Using CUPS, I managed to get the printer working perfectly. However, I’m struggling with the scanner setup. I installed the GNOME scanning software, but unfortunately, it doesn’t recognize the scanner.
I’m running Clear Linux version 42790 on my device which is an HP product: 550-132nl (X6Z04EA#ABZ).
CL does provide the hplip package needed for hp printing GitHub - clearlinux-pkgs/hplip
however, based on the .spec file, it’s built without a lot of the options which eg: fedora uses. Here’s a comparison
HPLIP takes some work to setup, and it’s not always clear which scanner models require proprietary binary components that we don’t ship. Have you tried using hp-setup to configure the scanner or scanimage -L to try to detect it directly via sane?
If you can’t get it working with our open-source-only build of hplip, it might be worth downloading and installing the official package from HP (HP Linux Imaging and Printing | hp's Developer Portal) as shown earlier in that guide.
I’m adding sane-airscan to the hardware-printing bundle. Once it’s in a release, you should be able to run airscan-discover to try to find your scanner.
I used CUPS to configure the printer and performed a test print, which was successful. Afterwards, I installed Document Scanner from Flathub and started it, but the scanner was not detected. This morning, I uninstalled the printer and used hp-setup to reinstall it. Due to time constraints, I wasn’t able to check if the scanner works. I will update you this evening.
I have just returned, and now the app is listing it. However, when I press ‘acquire images,’ it returns ‘Unable to connect to the scanner.’ From the app settings, it doesn’t seem possible to choose the paper tray. Now I’ll start learning how to install sane-airscan, unfortunately, I’m not very familiar with command-line instructions.
org.gnome.SimpleScan is already in the distro. If you can wait a couple of days for a new release to come out, then sane-airscan will be in there too. It’s at least easier to debug natively-installed vs. Flatpak, especially when trying to connect to an external device.
When I installed ClearLinux 42100 (because if I try to install directly from 42790, the installer triggers a Kernel Panic during startup), I didn’t find SimpleScan preinstalled. I had to download it from Flatpak. I’ll wait a few days, thanks again.
It’s provided by the desktop-apps bundle, and shows up in the menu under GNOME/GTK/Graphics/Scanning, or just launch the menu and start typing ‘scan’, for example. Or launch from the command line as ‘simple-scan’.
During installation, I didn’t choose to add any ‘additional bundles,’ so it wasn’t preinstalled. At this point, I’ll uninstall it from Flatpak and install it via swupd.
One last thing, I’ve noticed that launching SimpleScan requires administrative rights each time. Is it possible to remove this requirement since the scanner is already listed? Unfortunately, without entering the password, I cannot scan.
