The HPLIP UI is sometimes very buggy when it comes a) detecting plug-ins are already installed, and b) downloading the ones from HP's site. This has been my experience.
This page shows the list of supported devices and whether they need a plugin and for what reason. If you only want to use printing functionality of your device and your print functionality does not require a plugin, you can skip plugin installation with the steps below.
- Install HPLIP the normal way on your distro.
- As root, edit
/usr/share/hplip/data/models/models.dat
(or equivalent path). - Find your device model in the file. It will be in
underscore_style
and may not be exactly what is written on your box or device. I have the Color LaserJet MFP M277dw, so I search form277dw
. - Find the line in this section that says
plugin=1
. Change this toplugin=0
. - Restart
hp-setup
.