HPOfficeJet H470 in Ubuntu 8.10 over Bluetooth

It was all working in Hardy, but a week ago I reinstalled my Dell M1330, no Vista anymore - just Ubuntu 8.10. Very impressed, added Crossover Linux (still need MS Office), and I don't think I'm going to look back.

Hardware recognition fantastic, my 3G dongle, which used to give me a lot of grieve before - now is running with a single click on the panel...

Bluetooth seemed fine as well (connecting to other laptops and exchanging files OK). However, got stuck on the HP H470 printer. It worked with Hardy, now, attempts to connect only showed "Pairing Failed". Checking Ubuntu forum confirmed that there is a known bug in Intrepid, and there is seemingly a disagreement between the forum members and the developer on how to handle this. Shame...

Never mind, time to get under the hood. The bug indicates that the gnome front end configuration is broken. Instead, one can use the CUPS web-based configuration, available through your browser.

First check that your CUPS daemon is running, is listening for tcp connections:

$ /etc/init.d/cups status

Status of Common Unix Printing System: cupsd is running.



$ netstat -a | grep LISTEN | grep cups

unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 62711 /var/run/cups/cups.sock

If not, you may have to (re)start the CUPS daemon (replace "status" with "start" in the first command above).

Now to the actual configuration:

1. First of all, identify the printer's number with the following command:

$ hcitool scan

Scanning ...

00:21:86:XX:XX:XX PIECORNERENG

00:1A:0E:XX:XX:XX Officejet H470


2. Now start your browser and enter the server's URL: http://127.0.0.1:631. This will point it at CUPS administration server (strictly speaking it is IPP - Internet Printing Protocol using CUPS).

3. Select Add Printer, then Continue

4. Enter values for Name, Location and Description, then Continue

5. In Device: screen select from the drop-down list HP Printer (HPLIP), then Continue

6. In the Device URI screen enter the protocol and the address for your printer, as identified in step 1. Notice no ':' characters used in the string below:

bluetooth://001A0EXXXXXX, then Continue

7. Complete the configuration with the:

Make: HP, then Continue

Model: HP Officejet h470 Foomatic/hpijs (en), then Add Printer


Hopefully, you are looking at "The Bluetooth printer has been added successfully"

8. Test the setup from the command line. Run:

$ lpstat -t

scheduler is running

no system default destination

device for Bluetooth: bluetooth://001A0E79AF32

Bluetooth accepting requests since Fri 23 Jan 2009 16:39:02 GMT

printer Bluetooth is idle. enabled since Fri 23 Jan 2009 16:39:02 GMT


From now on, whether you print from the command line, or from applications, the printer will work hard for you!