I spent months as a 'Newbie' trying to get my Lexmark printer working but learnt a lot. A short time ago I had a piece of very good luck : the printer went into self destruct mode whilst printing a job!
I looked up linuxprinting.org and selected an HP Deskjet 5440 from their database which was aid to work 'perfectly' I bought it and it does. It cost only £46.
I get an average of 1-2 a day of Round Robin E-mails about troubles printing with Lexmark printers. My advice (for what its worth) is:- throw the thing out and buy an HP.

I have a lexmark z42, and runs like a swiss watch. As a matter of fact I started using it, because on early linux versions It was the only printer i had that worked under linux.

I've got a X75. No scanning, but prints using the X31driver.

The problem with any GNU/Linux printing is finding drivers. Not many are writing drivers for the plethora of cheap inkjet printers out there. The main emphasis seems to be for lasers and line printers. Take up the slack and write one.