Printing over network to HP Photosmart 2575

These instructions help you to set up printing from a Linux machine to a HP PhotoSmart 2575 printer in your network. This is actually quite easy, much easier than setting it up to work with Windows (drivers and software in Windows seems buggy).

Do the following:

• Set the printer up in the normal way, connected via Ethernet. I also connected the printer to a Windows Vista machine in order to configure it; not sure if that is needed. Anyway, at the time of writing this (June 2007), HP's support for Vista is buggy and below commercial acceptability.
• In a Linux box (in my case Ubuntu), click System ... Maintenance ... Printers, and add a printer.
• Set the printer up as follows:
  • Network printer
  • Connection via HP JetDirect to the IP address of your printer, port 9100
  • Manufacturer and model: HP and Photosmart 2570 (2575 is not yet in the official list of support printers)
  • Driver hpijs (the default)
  • Fill in some dummy usernames and passwords, if the software asks them -- these are not used unless your printer has been configured to ask them

If your printer resides in a private home network, protected by a firewall capable of SSH (such as a Linux router), you can do the following to make it possible to print anywhere:

• Configure the IP address of the printer in your computer to be 127.0.0.1 (localhost).
• Set up an automatic SSH tunnel to the printer through the router. This commands needs to be given at startup:

  ssh -o KeepAlive=yes -N -f -L 9100:printerip:9100 username@router

  Where "printerip" is the real IP address of your printer in the private network, "username" is the account you have in the router, and "router" is the IP address of the router.