Getting a Dell A940 USB printer to work on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop
 

Hey everyone.. I'm on this laptop now with a new install of Desktop FC4. I want to connect my Dell A940 printer to it via USB. In the CUPS config GUI, it has absolutely no problem detecting the printer, however there is no driver that is able to communicate with it. All of the generic drivers fail. I turned to my friend Google, who provided me with no answers.

Could someone help me? Thanks in advance.

Your Dell printer is a Lexmark in some way shape or form. I'm not sure what kind of Linux support is out there for Lexmarks.

Epson makes a good not-so-free Linux/cups driver these days. Pay a little more and get the job done right.

I know that the Dell A940 is actually a Lexmark X5150... and that people have gotten it to print with the Lexmark Z55 drivers... so I downloaded the Linux z55 drivers from their website and installed them. I used the device as /dev/usb/lp0. The RPM installed successfully... the question is... now what? The driver is not in the system-config-printer-gui list of available drivers. How do I set up a CUPS printer with this new driver?

And how would buying an Epson driver-set help me with a Lexmark printer? Confused.

Two Options
 

1. RTFM
2. Buy a book on cups and read all about it.
3. If you use KDE, there should be a gui to help you through.

BTW, setting up printers in linux is not as simple as windows and most distro's don't set a fsking password for lp-something or make admin user for cups the same password as root (which some would rightly say is not good policy) so it takes some patience to figure it out.

Good luck!

1. Read which manual? The printer manual that came with the printer mentions absolutely nothing about Linux support.
2. I don't want to learn all about CUPS. I'm not planning on designing a driver, I'm planning on installing one.
3. Like I said, the drivers don't show up in the GUI.

I appreciate your responses but in the Linux spirit I'd rather not buy a book or buy a set of drivers from a company. I'd rather get some advice from a hardend Linux veteran who really understands what he is doing. While I appreciate the help you've given so far, if you don't know how to do it and aren't interested in genuinely helping me, please refrain from making such comments as "RTFM" as to assume I haven't already tried all the obvious options. The reason I am asking this question is because I tried all the paths that I know and none worked so I am searching advice from someone who may have taken a different path.

That being said, does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Ingrate
 

I'd give you the URL to solve the problem but you have proven yourself unworthy of friendly assistance.

Maybe buying a supported Linux distro is in order? Suse comes to mind.

Well I'm sorry for whatever it is that I did to offend you. I mean no offense myself, but I took some offence from your comments. This is for my girlfriend's laptop and printer that she got for christmas. I have a temporary solution set up, it now prints thru a networked HP LaserJet 1200 via SMB. That in itself was a pain to get up and working... Problem is that it's only a black and white printer. gah.

I tried installing both files from the Lexmark website for the z55, and while they both installed correctly, neither one worked. It was odd.

But I guess the important thing is that the computer can print now. Color may just be a luxery.

I am having the same problem. the lexmark is supposed to be a self installing script but I can not get it to work on a Mandrivia 2006 Desktop either.
BTW I did not see anything offensive either

What was really offensive
 

The only offensive comment came from the user that told you to RTFM. This happens a lot when asking for help with Linux. They automatically assume the user is the problem.

You may just be SOL for getting that printer to work. But what's worse is the treatment you've been given here. Next article I read saying "Try Linux, the community support is great" will make me raise an eyebrow.

Are we competing with Microsoft or users?

What's Rude ?
 

>>>I don't want to learn all about CUPS.<<<

1. Providing help to someone that doesn't want to make the slightest bit of effort to help themselves is pretty much a non-starter.

2. I provided other options and yet I'm shouted down because I didn't leap into solve his vaguely defined problem in a manner that suited him for free?

No wonder so many of these posts go unanswered. Lesson learned.

Thanks for the reply
 

You told him to read a book. No offense, but that's not a solution. To say that someone didn't take that advice isn't fair. Incidentally, he did take your first line of advice; he DID read the manual, and found nothing about Linux in it. That's not his fault.

This isn't directed at you personally, it's just indicitive of what forums are like. If we're going to expect Linux to replace or even match the number of users, we're gonna have to do better than this for a support model.

I know this hasn't been updated in a while, but I couldn't help but noticed mpapet: "Maybe buying a supported Linux distro is in order? Suse comes to mind."

That's pretty funny advice, considering that most people new to Linux are told about the free and open source "community". To bad there was never a real solution to the original post's problems. It's sad that such a supposedly great OS doesn't have a simple solution to get an ordinary off the shelf printer to work. The Dell/Lexmark printer is very common indeed. Oh, I'm sure someone will say that it works, but then there will probably be several lines of just insert this into terminal, edit a config file or two from terminal of course, maybe even compile something to go along with the simple instructions and voila! Easy printing with Linux, can Windows or Mac do that? Don't get me wrong though, I do like Linux a lot, I'm just not as advanced as some of those Linux gods that are out there that think everyone else is a moron because they don't know how to configure Linux to do what they want.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ht=Lexmark+Z55

Try this, I have got my Lexmark X5150 (which is not on the list, but thats ok) to print.
Go to Lexmark site and download the Z55 driver and CUPS (there are two drivers at Z55 downloads. Then follow the procedure there. Helped me, could help you too, if the Dell A940 is the same as Lexmark X5150. Cant scan with it though - still need to keep another OS to do that.