It took a bit of time and digging but I have managed to get my wireless Lexmark S301 multi-function color printer to work on Ubuntu. I also configured my Ubuntu box with Samba network printing so that guests will be able to print too! It’s nice because I have my choice of printing text documents through my laser printer or pictures through the inkjet without swapping out USB cables or turning on a particular laptop to print blah blah blah.
Lexmark provides surprisingly good driver coverage for many flavors of Linux. I happen to use Ubuntu. I believe the drivers are cross compatible with other Lexmark printers.
I found this list of Lexmark Ubuntu drivers. These are the files I needed. Your needs will vary, depending on your hardware and version of Ubuntu.
- lexmark-printer-utility-1.0-2.i386.deb
- lexmark-inkjet-legacy-1.0-1.i386.deb.sh.tar.gz
- lexmark-scan-legacy-1.1-1.i386.deb
After downloading these I installed them through Synaptic package manager. Alternatively, if you’re running headless I believe you can run “dpkg -i <driver name>” but there are some settings that I can tweak where having GUI access is very useful.
With the packages installed you will have new options in your Admin menu.
- System > Administration > Lexmark Printer Utility — To setup the wireless capabilities
- System > Administration > Lexmark Printer Toolbox — To monitor ink supplies.
Reference