For a while now I’ve been thinking about some ideas for a project that will require a scanner. No problem you think, scanners of various kinds have been supported in Linux for a long time.

As I started to look at models of multi-function printers, one thing became apparent almost immediately – HP have done a lot of leg work on this. I quickly found a bunch of info on their site about how they basically support all of their stuff on Linux, including a page which specifically listed popular distros and which versions worked with which printers.

I decided pretty much immediately that I wanted to support this, so off I went to the shop to buy an HP. They had the decent looking F4580 for around £40, so I nabbed that and set off home.

When I got home I fired up my laptop running Lucid and plugged the new device in.