HOWTO: Install PITA Lexmark Z600 Z615 and Dell Photo Printer 720

[numb401]

Ok heres my first guide in ubuntu. I'd never thought i'd become this proficient in linux but after enough hacking around I've learned you can get almost anything to work, like the Z600 series of lexmark printers (Also rebranded dell photo 720). So heres my first how-to in anything linux.

First you'll need the drivers from lexmark, you can find those at
http://downloads.lexmark.com/cgi-per...Redhat&target=
Or search on lexmark for the redhat drivers.
In a terminal, untar the files you just downloaded using

tar -xvzf CJLZ600LE_CUPS_1_0_1.TAR.gz

Since its packaged for redhat, its gonna be a not so straightforeward install to get it to run on your ubuntu system. Next your picking apart the shell script and untarring the install file within

tail -n +143 z600cups-1.0-1.gz.sh > install.tar.gz
tar -xvzf install.tar.gz

Since rpms are ALMOST worthless to us in ubuntu, you need to install a program called alien to convert them to our favorite .deb packages.

sudo aptitude install alien

once alien is installed we being the converting, ignore any messages about scripts not being converted, we dont need those.

sudo alien -k z600llpddk-2.0-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k z600cups-1.0-1.i386.rpm

Once you have ran them through alien, you will find nice little .deb packages in the folder you downloaded everything in. First install the pddk (Printer development kit) then install the CUPS driver.
Afterwords if your in gnome, go into System>Administration>Printing and add your printer.
You will find the driver under lexmark as the z600-1.01 or something similar to that.
Congrats now you got that pesky printer running under linux!

[linuxgeekery]

Thanks a lot for this. A year ago, Dell was giving these away free with their computers. I didn't have a printer, so I got one. Now it works in linux

[twede]

great forum, lots of help available! thanks for this posting, my printer works perfectly too

[tgow]

I have a dell photo 944. Does anyone know if this is perhaps also based on lexmark? If not, does anyone know where I may find some potential ideas or help for getting my Dell Photo 944 to work w/ Ubuntu or linux in general?

Thanks,
tgow

[s13_mills]

Hey - I used the above method to install my lexmark Z615 - the method seemed to go fine, no error messages etc, and the driver installed from the list... but my printer still won't work! Works perfectly with XP.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Redindian]

i was struggling with my printer, it works like a charm now.....thanks.

[KBenk]

Hello,

First of all, I would like to thank you for posting this walk-through. When I first started I really had no idea how to get my printer going.

After saying that, I want to offer a little more help to anyone trying to do this. When I first downloaded the driver from Lexmark it came with a slightly different name than is used in this tutorial. So, when trying to run the command:

tar -xvzf CJLZ600LE_CUPS_1_0_1.TAR.gz

I kept getting an error message telling me that this was an unknown file. This is because the name of the file that I downloaded was "CJLZ600LE-CUPS-1.0-1.TAR.gz". Therefore the command that I needed to run was:

tar -xvzf CJLZ600LE-CUPS-1.0-1.TAR.gz

It is amazing the frustration that these slight variations can cause, but I figured it out and after changing this one command the rest of the process went just as the tutorial stated. So, if you are having trouble go ahead and try the new command. I hope this will be of some help to those of you that are having trouble.

~KBenk

[PhilJ]

H all,
I used that howto to install my z600 under breezy no problem
but under dapper I cant get the %^^&&%&!!!!! thing to work with F-photo or gnome photo printer.

it starts printing halfway down the page (postcard) or wont shrink the photo to fit the page or sometimes just spits the paper out and sits there saying printer busy.

If I use Gimp it works OK

edit gthumb wont do it either

any ideas ?

Philj

[lefty.crupps]

Worked very well, thank you for the great instructions!

[hbchrist]

Worked like a charm in 6.06. Brilliantly done!