SOLVED - Samsung SCX4100 MultiFunction Device+Gentoo+SANE

[andrewbaldwin]

This is my first post here so apologies in advance for any unintentional breaches of etiquette.

I'm posting this in the hope it will help others. I bought a Samsung SCX4100 multi function laser printer/scanner copier and am pleased with it. One of the reasons for choosing it was the 'penguin on the box' Linux support. However using it was not altogether easy.

Here are my experiences and workarounds - if it helps you - great - if not it may give you some ideas; Samsung just say that Gentoo isn't a supported distro.

PRINTING: - Fine using CUPS but BE AWARE that using Samsungs driver install it renames lpr and then does a "ln -s slpr lpr" to replace it with its enhanced version [which then calls the original lpr].

All well and good unless you install the driver twice (as I did to get a later version) in which case printing doesn't work. It also causes some issues with existing printers [I kept my HP inkjet for colour output].

Safest course is to change the new lpr to slpr, link the renamed copy of the original lpr to lpr and then in applications which use printing (eg OpenOffice.org) define a printer 'samsung' which has slpr as its print command so you can get the extra goodies whilst keeping full compatibility for other printers

SCANNING: - It appears that there's an issue between Samsung and SANE. By trial and error I established that it WILL work IF you do the following:

1) Physically pull out all USB connections from the PC apart from the Samsung
2) Fire up SANE or XSANE
3) Put back your USB connectors.

Looks like the driver expects the device to be on the first port (/dev/usb/lp0).


Good luck