Howto Install the Lexmark Z810 Series printer driver

Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) 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, and might not work for other versions.

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 this file 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 lines:

sudo apt-get install alien
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install libcupsys2-dev
sudo apt-get install libcupsimage2-dev

Installation

At first, install the Lexmark library. As it is delivered in RPM package format, convert it into a WikiPedia:.deb using alien. Then install it via dpkg.

sudo alien 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

If you take a look at the output of sudo make, you will recognize a warning regarding a wrong library version number. This is related to the fact that the Lexmark library hasn't been updated since 2004. However, it seems like that doesn't impose any problems.

# find rastertoz810 file: it's the file dedicated for Z810 for cups system

find . -name rastertoz810 file -print

# Put the new filter in the cups filter directory

sudo copy rastertoz810 /usr/lib/cups/filter

make install didn't work, even after reading the howto where the original author says:

# Q: The driver compiled, but the installation failed with:

Adding Z810 printer queue ...
make: *** [install] Error 127

A: You really should use "su -" instead of just "su" to switch to root :-) It's a slight error on my install script, and I'll fix it on the next version (fixed at 0.6). For now, just run /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p Z810 -E -m Lexmark-Z810-lxz810cje-cups.ppd.gz -v z810:/dev/usb/lp0 and your installation will be complete.

I looked up lpadmin --help, and replaced the following makefile line /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p Z810 -E -m Lexmark-Z810-lxz810cje-cups.ppd.gz -v z810:/dev/usblp0 by doing the following:

sudo /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p Z810 -E -P Lexmark-Z810-lxz810cje-cups.ppd.gz -v z810:/dev/usblp0 

This worked fine for me in ubuntu edgy eft 6.10, but you might need to look up on which /dev/usblpXX your printer can be found!

Open System - Administration - Printing. You should see your printer now.

CategoryHardware