We’ve just bought a new laser multifunction printer, the Samsung SCX-3205. I want to make it work on Ubuntu Linux 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.

Linux drivers are provided by Samsung, but their installation procedure seems ugly to me. So, I’ve tried to make it work without executing this procedure. By reading the provided installation script, I was able to understand what it did and manually configure my computer, understanding what is being done.

Download

First, download the driver on the Samsung website. Here is the link for the french website :

http://www.samsung.com/fr/consumer/it/color-multifunction-devices/mono-color-laser-multifunction/SCX-3205W/SEE/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=support

EDIT on 2012-01-25 :

The download page address has changed : http://www.samsung.com/fr/support/model/SCX-3205/SEE-downloads?isManualDownload=true

Then uncompress it:

tar zxf UnifiedLinuxDriver_0.93.tar.gz

Printer (CUPS) driver

The cups driver only needs two files. Copy them to the system:

sudo mkdir /opt/samsung_printer_manual_install
sudo cp cdroot/Linux/noarch/at_opt/share/ppd/scx3200.ppd /opt/samsung_printer_manual_install
sudo cp cdroot/Linux/i386/at_root/usr/lib/cups/filter/rastertosamsungspl /usr/lib/cups/filter/

Then, plug and power on the printer. It is detected by CUPS, and a driver is not found. The /opt/samsung_printer_manual_install/scx3200.ppd is provided to CUPS, and that is sufficient for the printer to work.

Scanner (SANE) driver

This printer is supported by the Xerox_MFP driver, at least on Maverick.

You just need to add the following lines to /etc/sane.d/xerox_mfp.conf:

# Samsung SCX-3205 (manually added)
usb 0x04e8 0x3441

The user should be in the « lp » group… or at least it works when used as root.

Share printer and scanner over the network

You can share the printer with CUPS and the scanner with SANEd.

Share printer

On the server

To share the printer, you just need to publish printers connected to this system on the network (with the « Administration » – « Printing » menu).

On the client

You just need to configure the computer to show printers shared by other systems.

Share scanner

On the server

You need to give SANE the rights to access the printer:

sudo adduser saned lp

In /etc/default/saned, change the following line:

RUN=yes

In /etc/sane.d/saned.conf, add a line referring to your network:

192.168.42.0/24

Then start SANEd.

sudo /etc/init.d/saned start

On the client

Edit /etc/sane.d/net.conf, add a line containing the server’s IP address.

That’s it! You can now scan from another computer.