printing with HP LaserJet Tank 1020w with Android and Linux

Instead of just connecting the USB cable and using plug-and-play on Linux to install the drivers, thought I would directly try HP's Smart app on Android to install the printer. Worked OK, though it was nearly 100 MB in size. While printing documents shot as photos, my phone makes the background of the pics excessively grey - so probably need to edit the image, bump up brightness and contrast.

Trying to print from Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia, though the network printer was found, and as prompted by the wizard, I had installed the drivers it prompted, giving the print command did not lead to any action on the printer. Pressing the "i" information button was giving a test print on the printer, so the printer itself was fine. 

 

Found a youtube video detailing the installation of the HP Linux Imaging and Printing software hplip, which described the problem I faced exactly. In my case, it looked like hplip version 3.17.10+ was already installed by Linux Mint, but the printer needed a newer version as per

https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/supported_devices/index

But going through the install process, came across multiple devel packages which the installer was not able to install for Linux Mint 19.3 - like SNMP devel package. 

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=326610

Some forum posts indicate can make it work without the hplip package. Using the foo2zjs instead, method like

https://mark911.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/how-to-install-printer-drivers-for-hp-laserjet-1020-in-ubuntu-14-04-lts-without-needing-access-to-openprinting-org-website/

but using github as the source as indicated at

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1345155/how-to-install-foo2zjs-tar-gz-when-website-doesnt-work

So, I first uninstalled the old version of hplip with apt (I had done this before trying to install the new version of hplip), and then

sudo apt-get update

 sudo apt-get remove cups hplip cups-filters hplip-data system-config-printer-udev

 sudo apt-get install cups build-essential tix groff dc axel

 sudo apt-get install cups-filters cups unp system-config-printer-gnome

 sudo rm -rf /usr/share/hplip

 cd /tmp

 rm foo*

git clone https://github.com/koenkooi/foo2zjs.git

cd foo2zjs

make

# Also, since source code from github already contains all firmware images,

# there is no need to run getweb, as per the askubuntu link above. 

sudo make install

sudo make install-hotplug

# Unplug and re-plug the USB printer into the PC

 # add new HP Laserjet 1020 printer via system-config-printer tool

 # and choose to use foo2zjs foomatic printer driver :

 system-config-printer

# at this step, my system was silent, since I did not connect via USB, but instead on network. 

Now when I tried a test page print via the network printer shown in Ubuntu, it worked. 

 

Edit 22 May -  On Linux Mint 20.3, which is based on Ubuntu 20.04, the printer installed automatically flawlessly. I just switched on the printer, which had already been set up on the wifi network, Linux automatically detected it and added the printer without me having to do anything, and a print from Gimp worked fine.