Installing a Samsung printer

Updated: 8/3/07

This is a guide that should hopefully ease you through the stress of getting a Samsung printer working in Linux.
I made this guide with Ubuntu 6.10 and a Samsung SCX-4100 but most versions, distributions and models should be fairly similar.
I will also be updating the guide in the future hopefully if I manage to work out scanning as well.

Getting the driver:
To start off with you need to head to www.samsung.com and get the latest version of the driver. Look for the linux driver that ends in .tar.gz (at the time of writing 20070129124018750_UnifiedLinuxDriver.tar.gz was the file to look for). Save this file to your desktop and once it has finished extract it by right clicking on the file and selecting “extract here”.

Installing the driver via supplied instructions:
From here we install the drivers which should be as simple as moving to the correct directory and running the script:

cd Desktop/cdroot/Linux
sudo ./install.ch

If everything runs fine and dandy and the printer installs and you can use a test page, then wow your a lucky one. If your like the rest of us then it will not be so pain free. However with the release of the new unified Linux printer drivers for linux, it is only a quick task to get things going.

Editing the needed files:
The first thing we have to do it edit the install script, however it is currently read only file. This can be done by moving opening up the directory via the GUI: ‘Right click on install.sh > properties > permissions’ then change owner access to ‘read and write’.
Now we have the permissions to edit the file. Which we can do by opening the file with gedit:

sudo gedit install.sh
we then change the top line from
#! /bin/sh
to
#! /bin/bash

apparently this is just something that is different between some versions of Linux.
Installing drivers:
We now try to install the drivers again

cd Desktop/cdroot/Linux
sudo ./install.sh

It should now work and an installation screen should pop up. Move through the install and another window will pop up trying to get you to install the printer. Do this, but chances are there will be no driver for the printer. This just seems to be a minor problem, we will fix that up now. “Cancel” out of the add window and click “finish” on the original installation window.

Adding your printer:

Go into ’system > administration > printing’ and then click on “New printer”. It might show a few printers connected, select the one that is like ‘Samsung SCX-4100 series’. Click ‘Install Driver’ and get the right driver from ‘Desktop/cdroot/Linux/noarch/at_opt/share/ppd’. Now the printer will not show up properly yet. If you head to the desktop and open up the program the initial installer put there and click “Add a printer” and follow the prompts, the printer should appear in the linux printers box.

Confirming your printer is properly installed:

Right click on your printers new flashy icon and click “Properties”, choose “Print test page” and it should now reward you with a hot freshly printed test page.