Dell Printers and Cups [Solved]

hestia · 2015-09-04 17:33:59

This seemed to be a universal issue for Dell printers so I thought I would post this here. This worked fine for me. I manually fixed the debian package so it verifies as a proper package and installs. The dell drivers now work fine and the printer works fine in CUPS. This is what I did.

Install dpkg from AUR.
if you're on 64bit, Install lib32-libcups (Since the driver is 32bit only)
Download the fixed deb package: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= … sp=sharing
Run sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture <debname>
Go to http://localhost:631 and install the printer through cups. It will automatically detect at this point and be listed as dell backend.

You can also use any other CUPS interface to add the printer because at this point it will detect the backend, but this seems to install everything correctly without the need for the shell script from dell.

pypi · 2015-09-04 20:14:02

Please consider clarifying this and putting it on the wiki (probably on the "CUPS printer-specific problems" page). There are many different Dell printers, which work with many different drivers. What is the purpose of installing a .deb package? Wouldn't it be better to create a PKGBUILD to automate the process and provide a native Arch package? What is the fix that you've mentioned?

The Dell printer that's already on the wiki is supposed to work with at least two different drivers, for instance, including an Xerox driver - I believe it is a rebadged Xerox printer. It might be worthwhile testing some FOSS drivers, since they may well work better 5+ years in the future than Dell's binary drivers.

hestia · 2015-09-04 20:42:50

None of the free drivers work with the specific printer I have. The V515W (and for the most part all of the VxxxW series) tend to have issues. Dell had official drivers for them for linux but they were only updated to ubuntu 9 and then dropped. The CUPS backends though still work. The xerox driver is for an older model Dell printer, the V series is a newer branding of All in one printers they have.

As for why I don't make a PKGBUILD, it's not that I won't, but that I haven't. The purpose of the .deb package is install the Dell CUPS support backends for the Dell All in one series of printers. It's the official dell drivers just fixed so that it doesn't complain about the blank line in the description.

I will add this to the wiki, I wasn't sure about just editing the wiki wholesale.

pypi · 2015-09-05 03:54:20

IMO, a proper PKGBUILD on AUR would be good
There's lots of advantages to doing it "properly"!

I'm not sure what you mean by "editing the wiki wholesale". You should only need to add a printer entry (under Dell, obviously) and a custom driver entry with the basic instructions for installing the driver (ie how to fix the original driver package, (possibly) where to download it, noting that it is 32 bit), possibly with a link to the original blog post (not sure how that would look, sorry - I haven't needed to add external links yet).

Last edited by pypi (2015-09-05 03:55:07)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-09-04 17:33:59

Dell Printers and Cups [Solved]

#2 2015-09-04 20:14:02

Re: Dell Printers and Cups [Solved]

#3 2015-09-04 20:42:50

Re: Dell Printers and Cups [Solved]

#4 2015-09-05 03:54:20

Re: Dell Printers and Cups [Solved]

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