It seems you cannot pick up a trade journal these days without hearing about the growth of Linux (and its various flavors) and how it is encroaching on Microsoft operating systems. Although the pundits are not saying 2008 is the Year of Linux, the OS is becoming more relevant and important as a embedded, mobile, and desktop OS.

Anyone who has been challenged to install a print driver on Vista can attest to how alternatives are emerging in the market. HP has some pretty good Linux drivers. Our drivers support the following capabilities:

• Printing to 1,439 HP printers, including Deskjet, Officejet, Photosmart, PSC, Business Inkjet and LaserJet. (For a complete list, please see Supported Devices).
• High quality photo printing.
• Full-bleed printing.
• Automatic duplexing (on equipped printers).
• Scanning from compatible Officejet, PSC, Photosmart, and LaserJet MFPs.
• Automatic document feeder (ADF) scanning.
• A Scanner Access Now Easy (SANE) compatible interface.
• Color and B&W scanning.
• PC send fax utility.
• Send fax address book.
• Photo card access utility.
• Device manager (toolbox) with maintenance tools, supplies levels, and status information.
• USB, network, and parallel connection types.
• Full integration with CUPS.
• PPD file provided for Postscript-only laser printers.
• Command line utilities for many often needed tasks.
• A simple setup utility.
• Automated Installer.

A couple of caveats. Not all printers are supported, but 1439 are! In addition to HP Linux, the following other versions of Linux are supported. Unsupported versions may also work.

• SUSE Linux (10, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 11.0)
• Fedora (4.0, 5.0, 5, 5.92, 6.0, 6, 7, 7.0, 8.0, 8, 9, 9.0)
• PCLinuxOS (2006.0, 2006, 2007.0, 2007)
• IGOS (1.0)
• Ubuntu (6.06, 6.10, 7.04, 7.10, 8.04)
• Debian (2.2, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0, 4.0r0, 4.0r1, 5.0, lenny, lenny/sid, stable, testing)
• Mepis (6.0, 6.5, 7.0)
• Mandriva Linux (10.1, 10.2, 2006.0, 2007.0, 2007.1, 2008.0)

More information and downloads our Linux drivers are available here and are available with an automatic or manual installer.

Supported LaserJet printers are listed here.

You can get support for the drivers online only at this URL. HP does not provide telephone support for Linux.

Happy Linux printing!