Printer Woes.

jlamothe · 05-24-2009, 01:03 PM

I just purchased a Lexmark X2650 printer for my machine. I was told that I could download Linux drivers for it, but I ran into a bit of a snag.

There are drivers available for Ubuntu, Debian, and a few other distros, but I'm running Slackware 11.2 on kernel 2.6.27.7-smp, and am not interested in changing to another distro.

When I try to use one of the drivers supplied on the vendor website, it complains that I need to have at least CUPS 1.2. I have CUPS 1.3 installed.

Has anyone found a way to make this work?

Shadow_7 · 05-25-2009, 06:28 AM

Lexmark has linux drivers? Supplied by the manufacturer? Since when? I've relegated most of mine to paper weight status for years.

You might try using --prefix=/usr on the configure options. The default is most times /usr/local/ where many distros install everything into /usr/, leaving /usr/local/ for locally compiled stuff. And confusing configure scripts looking for everything in /usr/local/ in the process. Otherwise it might be a $PATH issue. Or ldconfig / /etc/ld.so.cache and other quirks not always gelling between distros. When you need to compile from source(s).

There are sometimes tools to help convert another distros package to your distros package. Alien in debian to make RPMs into DEBs. You might see if there's something like that for your distro.

pixellany · 05-25-2009, 06:42 AM

Interesting to see that Lexmark now has some drivers. I would think the preferred way to install a driver would be to specify the .ppd file when installing the printer queue. When you get the Lexmark driver, is there a .ppd, or is it some kind of install script.

Regardless, if Lexmark wants cups 1.2 and you have 1.3---and that's the only way to make it work---that's worth a phone call to them. If they are going to supply drivers, then they have some responsibility to stay current.

jlamothe · 05-25-2009, 07:16 AM

I think it'll work with CUPS 1.3, the script's just not seeing that it's installed. I don't think that the --prefix option will work, but I'll give it a shot anyway. It's not a source tarball, it's a zipped shell script. (Actually, the file they sent me was a .gz.sh.zip, which seems rather redundant, but that's beside the point.)

I'll try calling Lexmark and see what that can do. If not, I've got an old machine kicking around that I've been using as backup file storage. I'll slap Ubuntu on it and see if I can set it up as a shared printer on the network. They specifically listed Ubuntu as one of the supported operating systems. I was just hoping to not have to do that. :/

AwesomeMachine · 05-25-2009, 08:17 AM

If the driver uses a configure script, you can specify: '--with-cups1.3=yes'. Sometimes you need to use the whole path.

jlamothe · 05-26-2009, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AwesomeMachine

If the driver uses a configure script, you can specify: '--with-cups1.3=yes'. Sometimes you need to use the whole path.

No such luck, I'm afraid.

Code:

Unrecognized flag : --with-cups1.3=yes
Makeself version 2.1.4
 1) Getting help or info about ./lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.tar.gz.sh :
  ./lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.tar.gz.sh --help   Print this message
  ./lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.tar.gz.sh --info   Print embedded info : title, default target directory, embedded script ...
  ./lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.tar.gz.sh --lsm    Print embedded lsm entry (or no LSM)
  ./lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.tar.gz.sh --list   Print the list of files in the archive
  ./lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.tar.gz.sh --check  Checks integrity of the archive
 
 2) Running ./lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.tar.gz.sh :
  ./lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.tar.gz.sh [options] [--] [additional arguments to embedded script]
  with following options (in that order)
  --confirm             Ask before running embedded script
  --noexec              Do not run embedded script
  --keep                Do not erase target directory after running
			the embedded script
  --nox11               Do not spawn an xterm
  --nochown             Do not give the extracted files to the current user
  --target NewDirectory Extract in NewDirectory
  --tar arg1 [arg2 ...] Access the contents of the archive through the tar command
  --                    Following arguments will be passed to the embedded script

I also get the same error with the '--prefix' flag.

jlamothe · 06-08-2009, 10:24 AM

In the end, I wasn't able to make this work.

I took an old machine I had kicking around on the network, slapped Ubuntu on it, and set the printer up as a shared printer. I can now print from Slackware without needing proper drivers.

Not the solution I was hoping for, but it works. :/