Ignorance is blitz
1 January 2006 13:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kinzelIgnorance is blitz...
Not long ago, as the the glacier moves, I sent a note to Lexmark support saying something very much like:
"I'm looking at perhaps giving away several Lexmark multi-purpose 6170s
-- I have one in my office and my VP has one in hers as well -- because
I can't find Linux printer drivers for them. This is a serious issue; I
have an expanding business and, like a number of my small business
acquaintances, I've mostly moved to Linux. Without decent Linux drivers
for Lexmark I'm going to have to go back to HP. Steve Miller"
Well, I got a reply; the gist of it was I should visit a certain page. After a slight rummage, it turns out that Lexmark, bless their hearts, have released something they call... a Lexmark Linux Printer/AIO Driver Developer's Kit.
Now, I'm long ago and faraway from mucking about in the guts of software and am not in (as far as I know) the Linux Developer League..., and besides, that kind of work seems to directly impact my fiction writing time. Does anyone who reads here have an idea of what goes into futzing with something like what's available on this page at Lexmark so I can get this thing working? Am I looking at 10 hours? 5 weeks? 1 lost novel's worth of time?
One of the projects I want to get to is scanning in lots of old (circa 1976-1984) photos of fannish events...BSFS/BaltiCon, maybe a Worldcon... and besides, the Tektronix printer is on the frtiz and I still have some need of color printing.
If this won't take too long I might give it a go. Else I *will* have to buy a printer/scanner and that's not really something I want to do soon, even as cheap as some of them are these days.
Not long ago, as the the glacier moves, I sent a note to Lexmark support saying something very much like:
"I'm looking at perhaps giving away several Lexmark multi-purpose 6170s
-- I have one in my office and my VP has one in hers as well -- because
I can't find Linux printer drivers for them. This is a serious issue; I
have an expanding business and, like a number of my small business
acquaintances, I've mostly moved to Linux. Without decent Linux drivers
for Lexmark I'm going to have to go back to HP. Steve Miller"
Well, I got a reply; the gist of it was I should visit a certain page. After a slight rummage, it turns out that Lexmark, bless their hearts, have released something they call... a Lexmark Linux Printer/AIO Driver Developer's Kit.
Now, I'm long ago and faraway from mucking about in the guts of software and am not in (as far as I know) the Linux Developer League..., and besides, that kind of work seems to directly impact my fiction writing time. Does anyone who reads here have an idea of what goes into futzing with something like what's available on this page at Lexmark so I can get this thing working? Am I looking at 10 hours? 5 weeks? 1 lost novel's worth of time?
One of the projects I want to get to is scanning in lots of old (circa 1976-1984) photos of fannish events...BSFS/BaltiCon, maybe a Worldcon... and besides, the Tektronix printer is on the frtiz and I still have some need of color printing.
If this won't take too long I might give it a go. Else I *will* have to buy a printer/scanner and that's not really something I want to do soon, even as cheap as some of them are these days.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
It depends...
2006-01-01 12:46 (UTC)Nope. Just nope.
2006-01-01 15:18 (UTC)Unfortunately, this "kit" is dependent on binary library packages being available for your printer -- and they aren't. The last update of the kit was two years ago. It's a safe bet Lexmark won't ever provide those binaries. So you'd have to reverse-engineer everything to even start on a driver. Not strictly impossible, but asymptotically approaching it.
I wish I had better news.
Re: Nope. Just nope.
2006-01-01 16:17 (UTC)likely I can use that old windows box, then, for the moment...
thanks for the analysis!
FWIW
2006-01-01 19:44 (UTC)Also (from a linux forum where someone was looking for a similar driver)
> If you already have the driver for this printer installed on a Windows system,
> simply do a search for "*.ppd" on your system. Look at the top of the file and
> you should be able to tell whether it is the right one.
>
> If you find it, you can use this PPD file in CUPS to drive your printer. See
> the CUPS documentation for details.
I don't know if this helps or not, but...
Re: FWIW
2006-01-02 05:21 (UTC)Sigh.
You could post a bounty...
2006-02-01 08:39 (UTC)You could try posting a Linux bounty (see: <http://bountycounty.org/category/skills/linux/>), and see if some bright, coder in college or from China/Ukraine/India/etc., can produce one for you.
To make this work, you will essentially need to spend a few hours putting together the moral equivalent of an RFP, and then back it up with some money.
The other option, is to do the same, but to post it to someplace like RentACoder <http://www.rentacoder.com/rentacoder/default.asp> or <http://www.getacoder.com/> and hire someone to do the job for you.
You could be looking at needing to spend a few hundred dollars for this work, but you have the potential via the 2nd route of being able to sell it (Google AdWords to the rescue).
Yours,
Jordan Dea-Mattson
jordan@dea-mattson.com