[DONE] M5-64: Adding Brother printer brings in HPLIP?

[DONE] M5-64: Adding Brother printer brings in HPLIP?

Postby elmago » Oct 31st, '16, 17:51

Hello,
After installing Brother MFC-9340CDW on my Mageia-5 64-bit laptop (HP EliteBook 8740W) on 24 Oct, I noticed yesterday that somehow HPLIP has gotten in too.

Frankly speaking, I was having trouble adding printer through MCC and do not remember or document the exact steps I followed. On the other hand, I do not remember opting HP drivers for Brother printer either! I did try adding Brother's drivers (from MCC GUI -- not from printer driver on CD) and it picked up 9320 drivers or something that did not work. I the end, I picked up open a source driver that works but no colour. Still have to investigate the choices carefully. Similar open source driver was driving Brother HL-4570CDW with most features.

My question is how this HPLIP is getting in? Here are some relevant info:-

Code: Select all
[root@localhost ~]#
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -qa --last | grep hplip
hplip-gui-3.14.6-8.1.mga5.x86_64              Mon 24 Oct 2016 06:20:14 PM EDT
hplip-hpijs-ppds-3.14.6-8.1.mga5.x86_64       Mon 24 Oct 2016 06:20:11 PM EDT
hplip-3.14.6-8.1.mga5.x86_64                  Mon 24 Oct 2016 06:20:11 PM EDT
hplip-hpijs-3.14.6-8.1.mga5.x86_64            Mon 24 Oct 2016 06:20:10 PM EDT
hplip-model-data-3.14.6-8.1.mga5.x86_64       Tue 12 Jul 2016 02:08:47 AM EDT
[root@localhost ~]#


I prefer open source software (with no back doors or monitoring software) all the way but judging from the plethora of hardware that comes out every year, there seems to be little option other than to depend on closed source firmware if one wants to use newer devices.
Thanks.
Last edited by elmago on Nov 2nd, '16, 01:41, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: M5-64: Adding Brother printer brings in HPLIP?

Postby doktor5000 » Oct 31st, '16, 20:09

elmago wrote:My question is how this HPLIP is getting in?

On an initial printer installation, MCC will install (among other packages) at the very least system-config-printer, which is the frontend used to manage printers, and also the metapackage task-printing-server (which pulls all relevant packages like printer drivers and libraries, filters and some helper programs) which in turn also pulls task-printing-hp as that is currently the only way to ensure automatic printer detection/installation for HP printers works. For more details feel free to read up on the related bug report https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9902


Totally apart from that and in turn, my question would be why are people disturbed by things like that? In general, the overall hardware support of most linux distributions (or even only looking at the kernel and its modules) is pretty extensive and e.g. way better then a regular windows installation where you often need to spend hours to get current/working drivers and such from various vendor pages and whatnot. So why is it that people don't like to have such comprehensive hardware support, and instead want packages removed which are not for their current hardware, which requires a lot of added complexity to remove or make many packages optional/removable but still keep the hardware detection stuff working? Sorry but I fail to comprehend that, at all.
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Re: M5-64: Adding Brother printer brings in HPLIP?

Postby elmago » Oct 31st, '16, 23:52

Doktor,
Thanks for your precise explanation, as always.

The other point I brought out normally ends up in a heated debate over closed or open source software. Then comes the polarization: do you support open source or not? You are with me or against me? Things like that! Keeping that in mind, I shall speak with caution.

As an ex driver developer I am aware of the capability a kernel code has. Allowing closed-source firmware to execute with that capability exposes my PC to the risk of being monitored/denial of service/being treated differently/arousing suspicion of authorities for nefarious activities/altered execution of software/subversive activities for monetary or political gain/etc. I am not saying it will happen. All I say is that I've exposed the PC to the risk of it.

The other point being my PC is a private thing and may represent my inner thoughts. So, for the sake of privacy, I would like to keep it closed to myself alone. Just encrypting it will not do any good if there is a monitoring piece of binary blob with an open internet line... something like using TOR browser in Windows and expecting to remain anonymous!

Now, if I look into a package like WiFi driver from some popular card makers, most of the folders in it have open source files or text files. But surely enough, I will find one or more completely binary files that must be loaded somewhere in order for the WiFi chip to work. If those files are FPGA download codes, I have nothing to say. But my guess is that they reside in the DRAM allocated to kernel and execute under the CPU with kernel privilege. I investigated the HPLIP package. It also has about 4-5 files that are binary (I haven't tried dis-aasembling them). What would it cost the manufacturers to open up those binary blobs for popular hardware and put these suspicions to rest forever?

I am not the only person with these suspicions. The mere existence of entities like dd-wrt, Linux Distros like Parabola, BLAG, Trisquel and web-pages like http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-linux-di ... en-source/ are testament to this fact.
Thanks.
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Re: M5-64: Adding Brother printer brings in HPLIP?

Postby doktor5000 » Nov 1st, '16, 20:29

Sorry but I don't get which other part you're referring to or how your further comments relate to this topic, and I see no point in debating this.
I have a pragmatic approach, use what works. If it's proprietary and there's no real alternative then so be it, if it's opensource then even better. But I'm no evangelist refusing everything that is not completely opensource, there are enough others that follow this path already

If you want to know how to install the Brother vendor drivers (which I'd recommend) then check their documentation: support.brother.com/g/s/solutions/linux/ for printer/scanner drivers and scan-key-tool.
For the actual driver downloads, check their downloads page: http://support.brother.com/g/b/products ... content=dl

If you don't have any further question regarding your original query related to hplip, please mark the thread as [DONE] or so.
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