Good Morning
I'm starting to think that the huge update had something to do with my hplip problems. For the record, I have an Officejet 6700 Pro, which runs wireless. HPLIP allows me to check the manual install, enter the static IP address and it sets the printer up, every time. Cups isn't always as forgiving.
Now, last night, I ran update-menus, and the HP icon appeared in the system tray. Clicking on the icon, it came up. The printer was already installed from earlier, but, hplip-gui is functioning fine.
I ran patience LXQt live, on a desktop, and the printer settings menu entry was working fine, not like on my EEEpc that was updated. I'm now installing it on a desktop, and will do the update, and see if it affects hplip on the desktop like it did the EEEpc.
Thanks for all the responses.