# Lexmark Z53 USB Printer

## SillyPants

I have a Lexmark Z53 USB printer and I can't seem to get it to, well, print.  I have a /dev/usb/lp0, but when i try 

```
$ echo "Test 123" > /dev/usb/lp0
```

nothing happens.  I'm running KDE 3.0.3 and went through the "add printer" dialogue, during whch it seemed to have located my printer on the USB bus.  I downloaded Z53 drivers (I think, this is the part I'm shaky on) from the gimp-print ebuild and it was listed in the Add Printer dialogue.  S I go to print, select my printer from the dropdowns (it says that its ready and accepting jobs), but nothing prints.  cupsd is running, but i can't get it to work with CUPS or LPD. 

```
$ lpr testfile
```

also does nothing.  This is the first time I've been serious about making the Linux switch, and previously I went with distros that held my hand through printer configuration, so I'm not sure I fully understand the paradigm here.

Any help?

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## prberens

Use cups-1.1.14 with gimp-print-4.2.0 (newer versions will not work).  I am using them with my USB Lexmark Z52 with no problems.  I don't think that GID printers (win-printers) will work if you echo data directly to the port (or at least I have never gotten them to).

Good luck!

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## Swishy

does Gimp-print have z33 drivers ???? It'd be a damn site easier to use that than to get the lexmark drivers working.....spent hours with no success.....even following the howto's on linuxprinting.....

Cheers

Dale.

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## SillyPants

 *prberens wrote:*   

> Use cups-1.1.14 with gimp-print-4.2.0 (newer versions will not work).  I am using them with my USB Lexmark Z52 with no problems.  I don't think that GID printers (win-printers) will work if you echo data directly to the port (or at least I have never gotten them to).
> 
> Good luck!

 

SWEET!  it works with those versions.  Thanks very much.  Anyone know 	why the newer versions don't cut the mustard?

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## kozmic

 *SillyPants wrote:*   

>  *prberens wrote:*   Use cups-1.1.14 with gimp-print-4.2.0 (newer versions will not work).  I am using them with my USB Lexmark Z52 with no problems.  I don't think that GID printers (win-printers) will work if you echo data directly to the port (or at least I have never gotten them to).
> 
> Good luck! 
> 
> SWEET!  it works with those versions.  Thanks very much.  Anyone know 	why the newer versions don't cut the mustard?

 

Most likely because the 4.3.x is development, and 4.2.x is stable.

Lexmark z52 will not work with 4.3.x, but with 4.2.2-rc1 (need to downgrade cupsd too)

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## mlybarger

i haven't had a chance to check and try different versions of gimp-print/cups with my lexmark z53. i was able to use the lexmark binary drivers and print locally with cups, but can't print from a remote machine.  i'm using gentoo 1.4, up2date.

can anyone comment on if cups/gimp-print 4.2.x works on this printer for network printing?

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## nmr_spectrometer

 *mark_lybarger wrote:*   

> can anyone comment on if cups/gimp-print 4.2.x works on this printer for network printing?

 

If you have your Z53 connected locally to a linux box using the Lexmark-supplied linux binary driver, you can print from remote windows boxes.  Simply set up a raw queue in cups (e.g. z53raw) pointed to the USB port that the printer is on (and use "raw" as the printer driver type).  As a samba share it works great.  (Of course install the windows driver on the remote machine).

If you want to print from a remote linux box, and you are using the lexmark binary driver (on both local and remote boxes), you're going to be s.o.l. printing from the remote box.  The lexmark binary driver connects to the printer directly to talk to it (bi-directional communication being required to get the 2400x1200 resolution) instead of the normal unix way of things, so you can't use the driver to print to anything but a local port.

If the gimp-print 4.2x series drivers follow the usual unix way of printing then it oughta work remotely.

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## hook

i tried to make my z33 work, and by all means it should ...but if i try to print anything i get an error (different programs give me different errors), so i killed the lpd and ran lpd -F which gives me this everytime i try to print:

2002-12-15-11:46:44.739 bakhos lexmarkz33: Make_temp_fd_in_dir: cannot create tempfile '/var/spool/lpd/lexmarkz33/temp00Y51NvX'

....i took drastical measures and ran chmod -R +w /var/spool/lpd ...but nothing happens  :Sad: 

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