Howto Install the Lexmark Z810 Series printer driver

Ubuntu has no built-in driver for Lexmark Z810 Series (Z815 / Z816) printers. This howto explains all necessary steps for installing a proper driver, the GNU-licensed CUPSZ810 by R. Cerqueira. On the official homepage for the driver you can always find the latest version of the sourcecode and some general FAQ for various distributions.

This howto was written for Version 0.7.1, and might not work for other versions.

After installing libstdc++5, the driver compiles perfectly on Xubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) without errors.

Preparation

It is always a good idea to create a new directory for operations like this. Do it e.g. with mkdir ~/z810.

Download the latest version of the driver package from the official homepage. Currently this is v0.7.1, so the file is called Z810CUPS-0.7.1.tar.gz.

Although the driver is open sourced, it relies heavily on a closed source library released by Lexmark. Download the library directly from Lexmark, after accepting the License Agreement. It should be called z810llpddk-2.0-3.i386.rpm.

Finally, make sure you have installed all necessary packages. If ubuntu-desktop wasn't installed you probably need additional packages, especially the cups printing system.

Open a terminal and input the following line:

sudo apt-get install alien build-essential libcupsys2-dev libcupsimage2-dev libstdc++5

Installation

First, install the Lexmark library. As it is delivered in RPM package format, convert it into a DEB using alien. Then install it via dpkg.

sudo alien -c z810llpddk-2.0-3.i386.rpm
sudo dpkg -i z810llpddk_2.0-4_i386.deb

Now, extract, compile and install the cups driver:

tar -zxvf Z810CUPS-0.7.1.tar.gz
cd Z810CUPS-0.7.1
sudo make rpm-compat
sudo make
sudo make install

Now configure your printer using the cups lpadmin command:

sudo lpadmin -p Z810 -E -P Lexmark-Z810-lxz810cje-cups.ppd.gz -v usb://Lexmark/810%20Series 

You can check the location of you printer using: lpinfo -v

CategoryHardware