How to make the totally unsupported Lexmark X2500 Work

[zerhacke]

1. On the Lexmark website under Drivers & Downloads find the X2600 all-in-one printer and click on Unix/Linux. For the Eee PC or other Debian-based distros choose the first option Debian 4 and download the following driver file (approx 30MB) to your home folder:
lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.deb.sh.zip

2. Don't connect the printer yet. Right-click on the downloaded file and choose "Extract All...". then click OK to unzip it in your home folder.

3.You will now also have the same file but unzipped so it ends in sh. If you can't get the installer to run by clicking the icon, open a terminal and try the following:
chmod 744 lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.deb.sh
./lexmark-inkjet-08-driver-1.0-1.i386.deb.sh

4. Now follow the instructions on screen. When you get to the point where it asks you to connect the printer, do so. However, you will find it won't be recognised (because it's not a 2600 series or Z2300 series printer). Exit by clicking the close button on the window and then clicking "Yes".

5. Now edit three text files to change the product i/d (PID) from 011d (or 0x011d), which is the PID for the X2600 series, to 010b (or 0x010b) which is the PID for the Lexmark X2550. The following commands in a terminal will open each of the relevant files in a text editor:
sudo kwrite /usr/lexinkjet/lxk08/etc/lxdn.conf
sudo kwrite /usr/lexinkjet/lxk08/etc/99-lexmark-2600-series.rules
sudo kwrite /usr/lexinkjet/lxk08/etc/Lexmarklxdn.conf
In each case change 011d wherever it appears to 010b (or 011D to 010B if it was in capitals), save and exit.

6. Now add the printer using the CUPS interface.
In the first box on the name/ description page there must not be any spaces so, for instance, just type lexmarkX2550 as one word. On the next page, in the Device dropdown list, select: "Lexmark USB Backend #1 (Lexmark X2500 series)" For Model/Driver select "Lexmark 2600 series, 1.0 (en)".
(On the Eee PC, you can also add the printer via the Printers icon on the Settings tab. However, I found doing it this way did not set the A4 paper size properly so that multiple-page printing did not work correctly.I then had to change the paper size in CUPS so it seems best to add the printer via CUPS in the first place.)

7. Finally click on "Print Test Page" and keep your fingers crossed... The scanner should work as well, although only from the computer not from the scanner button on the printer. There is also a Lexmark inkjet program to monitor ink levels and align the cartridges (type lexijtools in a terminal). However I could not get this to work - probably it doesn't recognise the different cartridges in the X2550. I'm hoping it doesn't matter on the X2500 series as an alignment sheet can be printed by holding the scan button for 3 seconds, then place it on the scanner glass and press the button again.

(with thanks from OpenPrinting Forum)

[letocharm]

You sir are amazing. This deservers a bump as it probably works for many printers not just the X2500 - one needs only go

dmesg | grep lp

and look at their printer's PID. So instead of 010B, it might be 011A, for example.

[Joshh100]

I'd like to bump this up once more, I found the same solution on the aforementioned website and it works like a charm! I've been trying forever to get my damn Lexmark X2500 working with Ubuntu and with this solution I finally got it to work! works great!

[2007mordor]

I was trying to install the script but, there is an error that says the CUPS is not the last version, it needs the 1.2 version or above, but i already have installed 1.4.1 CUPS version. Any idea?
Thanks in advance.
Mordor

[nathan726]

I was trying to install the script but, there is an error that says the CUPS is not the last version, it needs the 1.2 version or above, but i already have installed 1.4.1 CUPS version. Any idea?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1223710

[ru0n]

Thanks a lot. Worked like a charm... If only Lexmark would support Linux better.

[Shifty0509]

You are amazing!! Thanks a million.

[ktsteel]

Hey guy I can get all the way to the screen that says need to enter admin password but it wont accept mine, and I know it is correct, any thoughts?

[billcecil]

Hey guy I can get all the way to the screen that says need to enter admin password but it wont accept mine, and I know it is correct, any thoughts?

I have the same problem. What can I do?

[joedulin]

Hey ktsteel and billcecil, I was having that same problem and it's a very simple fix. The trouble is that it's looking for the 'root' password, and I'm guessing you're using an OS that uses sudo instead of root, right? Yeah, so you don't have a root password, you have a sudo password. Anyway, to get around that just execute the script with sudo, e.g. sudo ./lexmark_script_whateveritis

Also thanks for this little tip altogether. I haven't got it running yet (having troubles with the cups 1.2 thing, but I'm sure nathan726's link will do the trick for me, thanks to you too), but I will. I've been looking for this for over a year now...

UPDATE: Well, I got it working just fine if the printer is plugged directly into my Ubuntu box. Trouble is, I usually have it connected to a laptop that serves as a print server. Honestly, I'm thinking my troubles lie in the fact that the "server" is Windows XP, due to the fact that before today I couldn't use the printer with anything but Windows. I have the printer connected to my Ubuntu box through CUPS, and setup as a Samba printer. I'm using the exact same driver as I did when connected directly using USB. When printing over the network, my Ubuntu box gives me an error.

The error states:"There was a problem processing document 'test page', but in the Printer Properties window next to Printer State: it says, only for a moment, that the printer cannot communicate with the computer.

If anyone can help me out with this, that would be awesome. Otherwise, I'll take what I can and simply connect this computer directly to the printer (it's a laptop anyway) when I need to print, which is rarely. Thanks again guys.