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/ Hathaway Weblog / Samsung SCX-4100 Linux Installation |
I was going to write full instructions on how to get a Samsung SCX-4100 printer/scanner running under Linux, but never got around to it. Maybe if I give the raw information instead, someone else will be able to write the HOWTO. It really is a nice, inexpensive device, once you get through driver installation.
I installed Samsung's driver, but kept only the following files:
- /usr/lib/cups/backend/mfp
- /usr/lib/libmfp.so.1.0.1
- /usr/lib/libmfpdetect.so.1.0.1
- /usr/lib/libqt-mt.samsung-mfp.so.3.0.4 (libmfp seems to depend on it)
- /usr/lib/cups/filter/rastertosamsung{gdi|pcl|spl}. My printer probably only needs one of the three, but I haven't spent the time to find out.
- /usr/share/cups/model/samsung/scx4100.ppd.gz
- /usr/lib/sane/libsane-samsung_scx4100.so.1.0.1
I ran /sbin/ldconfig to create the proper symlinks, such as /usr/lib/libmfp.so. I typed modprobe usblp to load the standard Linux USB printer driver. I restarted CUPS and configured the printer by browsing to http://localhost:631/. The printer worked well.
To get SANE to talk to the device, I added a line to /etc/sane.d/dll.conf with the text samsung_scx4100. It didn't work until I updated the permissions on /dev/usb/lp0. Once I installed xsane and the excellent xsane GIMP plugin, the scanner worked well also.
I dropped Samsung's GUI and kernel module. The GUI adds nothing to what's already available in CUPS and KDE. If I recall correctly, the GUI was installed in /usr/local/samsung or somesuch; deleting that whole directory caused no problems. The kernel module (named mfpport) was installed somewhere under /lib/modules. I deleted it and ran depmod -a to clear all references to the module.
Comments
Can't imagine why are those modules (not) needed... What kernel are you using? What's the output of sane-find-scanner?
With xsane on one computer everything goes really well, but on the other one it starts to scan and when it has almost finished scanning process it complains with the following phrase: Error during read: Error during device I/O. Have no idea why is it so.... :-(
The kernel modules are only for connecting to the printer via the parallel port. I'm connecting through USB instead, so I simply don't need Samsung's kernel modules.
sane-find-scanner doesn't see the scanner. In fact, I've never seen sane-find-scanner work with any scanner I've used. Yet xsane works nonetheless!
That's too bad on the error message. I haven't seen it, so I don't have any advice except that you should watch for kernel message using "dmesg" whenever something like that happens.
With Ubuntu it looks like everything is working, but nothing prints.
For us Ubuntu users, you need to apt-get install libstdc++2.10-dbg to install the libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 lib.
I found this out by reading the cups error log.
a much belated thank you for this followup post to my original comment asking for more info. i now have no kernel panic at boot and my scx4100 works with debian. thanks!
Is it posible to connect and get working the scx-4100 via the parallel port ?
Removing /usr/local/bin/samsung stops my printer working.
What I noticed was though instead of using the ported created by driver as MFP/usb you are better of using USB port directly.
Also I used CUPS http://hostname:631 to configure the printer and not the MFP Configurator. Printer is working great. Some how xsane is not able to detect my scanner.
Any one got any ideas?
Cheers!!! Nilesh
I cant believe how poor the Samsung software is. I can get everything working under Gentoo, but libqt-mt-samsung breaks mythtv and leaves me unable to complile anything that uses qt. Removing the link to this lib fixes the problem until you use the printer/scanner. I'm sick of this garbage code. Anyone know of a mfp device that works with standard cups & sane backends?
John F,
I ran into the same issue. Make sure you use the latest version of the driver from Samsung's web site. The older version created a symlink called /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3.0.4; this messes up ldconfig (and hence anything that links with Qt!) Now the symlink is called /usr/lib/libqt-mt.samsung-mfp.so.3.0.4, and it creates no conflicts.
Hmm... yikes! I spoke too soon. I have a symlink in /usr/lib that works around this specific issue. I just tried removing the hack, and ldconfig pointed /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3 at libqt-mt.samsung-mfp.so.3.0.4. This will break tons of stuff. Ugh.
The hack is this:
ln -sf /usr/qt/3/lib/libqt-mt.so.3.3.4 /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3.3.4 /sbin/ldconfig
Then I get this:
# ls -l /usr/lib/libqt-* -r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 11002103 Feb 26 2005 /usr/lib/libqt-mt.samsung-mfp.so.3.0.4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 Oct 24 21:04 /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3 -> libqt-mt.so.3.3.4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Oct 24 21:04 /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3.3.4 -> /usr/qt/3/lib/libqt-mt.so.3.3.4
Unfortunately, I have to update this hack every time I upgrade Qt.
Well, I can recommend this printer/scanner to people who want to save a few dollars in exchange for a few hours setting it up. Otherwise, it's not for you.
Nilesh: Yes, I had the same experience. It was much easier to get it working via localhost:631 than using the strange GUI. On xsane: make sure /dev/usb/lp0 is readable and writeable by you. Type the following to see whether xsane is really trying to open /dev/usb/lp0:
strace xsane 2>&1 | grep /dev/usb/lp0
Ulfang: I think it's possible to use the parallel port, but that requires the 'mfpport' module, and sources aren't available for it. You'd have to use one of the specific distribution kernels that 'mfpport' happens to be compiled for. All it did for me was panic the kernel and crash! An open source version is not likely to appear since Samsung has shown no signs of opening it up and the standard 'usblp' module is already sufficient for connecting to this printer.
Thanks Shane The latest driver from Samsung is working for me, after deleting the kernel modules which segfaulted when cupsd started at boot. Thank God for knoppix!
Shane: Well yesterday I tried downloading the new driver set from Samsung's website. To my suprise after installing both my printer and scanner is working fine on my debian server. Even from my Ubuntu desktop without doing anything as its a client to the debian server it was able to print.
But in all this I got only one problem that earlier also I used to have while talking directly to USB. Which is my browser programs like Firefox and Opera are still not able to print. Basically I am not able to use lpr for printing though lpq shows me the printer queue.
Any idea?
Cheers!!! Nilesh
Well, I don't have a good answer because you're probably using GNOME. Let me tell you what I do using KDE; maybe it will spark an idea for you.
KDE has a gem called "kprinter". You run it like "lpr", but kprinter brings up a print dialog that lets me take advantage of the whole KDE print system. From the Firefox print dialog, I clicked the Properties button and set the print command to "kprinter". Now, when I print from Firefox or OpenOffice, I get two print dialogs in succession. The first is application-specific and knows little but the name of the printer. The second is much more aware of the printer's capabilities, has lots of features, and reports errors better. Maybe GNOME has something like kprinter.
It really took me one day to setup the SCX-4100 combo and all but one of the problems were caused by the Samsung binnary drivers. I really want to send them a letter explaining how they screwed themselfs.
I worked with 20050125183331828_DriversPack-1.0.156.tar.gz on Slackware 10.
1. The libqt-mt.so.3 is overrided. Installer does name its version libqt-mt.samsung-mfp.so.3.0.4 but unfortunately on every run ldconfig (that is executed on startup) recreates the short symlink, this way overriding the native qt lib. If I place the samsung version after native qt, then the samsung version is not queried at all. I guess lib real name is written inside the .so file and ldconfig ignore second lib. So it failes even if samsung programs are linked to long name version.
The real big problem is that cups printing filters and sane backend depend on samsung qt lib(#$@!).
The only solution that allowed samsung programs to coexist with kde/qt programs is to create hard link. Don't forget to update this hard link when upgrading native qt.
cd /usr/lib rm libqt-mt.so.3 ln qt/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
2. I also removed all mfp modules and /dev/ files. BTW in order to be able to mess with your system as user, the installer makes few system programs suid. Hunt them down If you don't want users to also mess with you.
3. It was minor problem, but in order scanner to work make sure you have usbfs mounted in /proc/bus/usb. The kernel usb scanner module is not needed (it uses libusb, as explained in sane manual). For printer make cups use /dev/usb/lp0 (if this is the usb printer). Make sure that usb printer module is loaded. hotplug seems to work ok if it is available.
4. After I had everything working I had to find out why no program can print. The problem showed to be that samsung driver replaces the lpr command with its own called slpr. The new one shows Windows-like print configuration box. Unfortunately it only accepts file and ignores stdin. So basically only few programs that feed lpr with temp file were able to print. (well, actually none of the programs I use).
The solution - restore the cups lpr (lpr-cups) and all your programs will print again!
cd /usr/bin rm lpr ln -s lpr-cups lpr
5. Firefox 1.0.7 have problem with non-English characters. I couldn't find workaround, but fortunately it is fixed in 1.5b2.
If ever one of samsung people ever reads this post. Please, please make drivers that install only cups and sane modules, don't display windows (it is so confusing to fill same info twice!) and don't depend on huge GUI libs. KiSS.
Thanks, Ivan. Samsung, if you ever get this, Ivan is right.
Has anybody tried printing (from a linux system) on scx-4100 connected to a windows PC via samba?
None of the samsung drivers that come with FC4 appear to be compatible with scx-4100. Otherwise, the samba part seems to work: the printer does go into a warm-up cycle, then it says "Printing" but goes to the "Ready" state without printing anything.
I then had samsung's latest drivers for scx-4100 installed at both the ends (linux: FC4, win2K); I could print from either end separately (i.e., if the printer was directly connected to that machine via a usb port). But printing via samba from the linux end when printer was connected to the windows machine did not work at all.
Another puzzling thing for me: printer configuration via http://localhost:631/ is able to recognize the newly installed samsung driver, but this driver is not seen at all when I try to configure the same printer via the system-config-printer interface.
I am not interested in interfacing the scanner with linux at the moment.
All help, suggestions, hints and advice appreciated!
Has anybody tried printing (from a linux system) on scx-4100 connected to a windows PC via samba?
None of the samsung drivers that come with FC4 appear to be compatible with scx-4100. Otherwise, the samba part seems to work: the printer does go into a warm-up cycle, then it says "Printing" but goes to the "Ready" state without printing anything.
I then had samsung's latest drivers for scx-4100 installed at both the ends (linux: FC4, win2K); I could print from either end separately (i.e., if the printer was directly connected to that machine via a usb port). But printing via samba from the linux end when printer was connected to the windows machine did not work at all.
Another puzzling thing for me: printer configuration via http://localhost:631/ is able to recognize the newly installed samsung driver, but this driver is not seen at all when I try to configure the same printer via the system-config-printer interface.
I am not interested in interfacing the scanner with linux at the moment.
All help, suggestions, hints and advice appreciated!
Thanks everyone for this wonderful resource. And thanks to Samsung for for embracing the Penguin. It's too bad the Penguin on the box didn't include my favourite distro...Debian.
I just set up a Debian from scratch. The following steps worked beautifully for me, and confirm a lot of the details scattered through these posts. The printer was attached to the USB port from the start. You may want to do likewise.
SYSTEM: Debian Sarge (stable) KDE 3.3 kernel 2.6.8-2-386 USB connection (not parallel)
(Note1: These same steps worked on Debian Etch (testing) / KDE 3.4 and kernel 2.6.12.) (Note2: I had mixed luck with the parallel port for printing and RARELY managed to get it to scan that way. I've only ever managed that under Libranet's distro of Debian...and I suspect they added a bunch of auto-detection and parport drivers that a standard vanilla install doesn't have.)
INSTALL DRIVERS (DEBIAN) Do the following as root (su for the newbies,) or use sudo.
apt-get install sane sane-utils xsane cupsys cupsys-driver-gimpprint cups-pdf libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 (this last package installs libraries needed for Samsung SCX-4100)
Make sure your CD/DVD drive has "exec" in the permissions of /etc/fstab Mount the Samsung driver CD (mount /media/cdrom1 in this case)
/media/cdrom1/install.sh (from Samsung disk)
WARNING!!! Samsung's installer scripts don't detect either sane or cups packages on Debian. DO NOT let the Samsung installer try to install cups and sane. I have broken a couple Debian installs by doing this.
This is the output of install.sh (and my responses)
- What would you like to do?..
- [1] Install driver package [2] Uninstall driver package [3] Cancel installation
Please make your choice [1,2,3]: 1 setup.sh: line 1: rpm: command not found setup.sh: line 1: rpm: command not found Samsung MFP driver package is about to be installed on your system...
- CUPS that is required for driver package to work properly was not detected on your system.
- [1] Install CUPS [2] I am sure I have necessary software installed. Do not install CUPS. Continue installation [3] Cancel installation
Please make your choice [1,2,3]: 2
- SANE that is required for driver package to work properly was not detected on your system.
- [1] Install SANE [2] I am sure I have necessary software installed. Do not install SANE. Continue installation [3] Exit (Stop installation)
Please make your choice [1,2,3]: 2
There are a bunch of errors and reports spewed out by the Samsung script. (I'll list those later in case anybody's googling the errors.) Despite the errors, the install works well enough for KDE/CUPS/SANE to find and use it.
I find that you don't need to run the mfpinstall, and the KDE/CUPS does fine controlling the printer. The next steps are to set up the printer in KDE/CUPS. (still as root.)
KDE CONFIGURATION:
Go to KDE's menu-->Control Center-->peripherals-->printer. Look for "Add" just left of "Help" and below "Printer." Click Add-->Printer/Class-->Local Printer-->Choose the port showing the SCX-4100-->Choose "Samsung" and "SCX-4100" The rest of the Next buttons take you though restrictions on user and quantity and other nicities like banners. Whatever you like here is fine.
TESTING PRINT AND SCAN: That should be it. Use the Test button in the cups setup to make sure about the printer.
Launch xsane and do a preview or scan to test the scanner.
COMPLETE LIST OF OUTPUT FROM <DRIVEMOUNT>/Linux/install.sh
MFPLDSteps=3 MFPLDStep=Installing common files... ######################################################################################### 1.0.135 1.0.135 Installing mfpcommon... Copyright Samsung Software Center, Moscow 2001-2003 (c) Software license silently accepted via command-line option. Removing old versions of mfpcommon software... Copyright Samsung Software Center, Moscow 2001-2003 (c) Running pre-remove commands... Removing/restoring installed files... Checking configuration files... Running post-remove commands... ERROR: Module mfpport does not exist in /proc/modules Removal is complete. Backing up old versions of non-shared files to be installed... Backing up old versions of shared files to be installed... Creating installation directories... Installing software... Running post-install commands... MFPLDProgress=100 MFPLDStep=Running scripts... Unable to update /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit Updating module dependencies. Please wait... Initializing CUPS drivers (Please wait. This can take several minutes)... done. Installation is complete. MFPLDProgress=100 MFPLDStep=Installing MFP drivers... ######################################################################################### Installing Samsung MFP drivers package... Copyright Samsung Software Center, Moscow 2001-2003 (c) Software license silently accepted via command-line option. Removing old versions of scx4100 software... Copyright Samsung Software Center, Moscow 2001-2003 (c) Removing/restoring installed files... Checking configuration files... Running post-remove commands...
DEBUG: Preserve existing driver options for printer scx4100 - will not remove printer DEBUG scx4100.postun.sh: point 6 DEBUG: PRINTER_NAME=scx4100 DEBUG: DRIVERS_REG_FILE=/usr/local/bin/samsung/drivers/installed_software DEBUG scx4100.postun.sh: point 7 DEBUG scx4100.postun.sh: point 9 Removal is complete. Backing up old versions of shared files to be installed... Installing software... Running post-install commands... Adding printer... DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: DEVICE_LINE=direct mfp:/dev/mfp4 "SCX-4100 Series" "Samsung MFP USB Port #1" DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: DEVICE_PORT=mfp:/dev/mfp4 DEBUG: Printer install string=lpadmin -p scx4100 -m samsung/scx4100.ppd.gz -v mfp:/dev/mfp4 scx4100.install: line 283: lpadmin: command not found scx4100.install: line 307: lpadmin: command not found scx4100.install: line 310: lpadmin: command not found Initializing CUPS drivers... DEBUG: CUPS_SCRIPT=/etc/init.d/cups DEBUG: cups_pid=18197 DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/usr/share/applnk - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/usr/share/applnk - MENU IS INSTALLED DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/usr/share/applnk-mdk - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/usr/share/gnome/apps - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/usr/share/gnome/apps - MENU IS INSTALLED DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/opt/kde/share/applnk - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/opt/kde/share/applnk-mdk - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/opt/kde2/share/applnk - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/opt/kde2/share/applnk-mdk - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/opt/kde3/share/applnk - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/opt/kde3/share/applnk-mdk - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/etc/opt/kde/share/applnk/SuSE - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/etc/opt/kde2/share/applnk/SuSE - menu to be installed DEBUG: scx4100.post.sh: MENU dir: MFP_APPLNKS_DIR=/etc/opt/kde3/share/applnk/SuSE - menu to be installed Installation is complete. Samsung MFP driver package installation succedded. MFPLDProgress=100 Samsung driver package has been installed successfully.
I have just uploaded a draft HOWTO as a message on the linuxprinting.org Samsung General forum. This weblog and the many comments on it were my basic resource, in addition to my own experience of having owned one of these printers for 16 months. Comments and corrections are most welcome
I had a bit of trouble with scx4100 after upgrading to kernel 2.6.15. (On Ubuntu Dapper, bleeding edge can be bleeding annoying...)
For some reason usbfs was not mounted on /proc/bus/usb so xsane did not find the scanner. This was trivial to fix. Also, I needed to symlink /dev/usblp0 to /dev/usb/lp0 so that the driver would find the device file.
But printing did not work even after that, I only got following to CUPS error log:
I [23/Jan/2006:21:15:59 +0200] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/mfp (PID 10839) for job 64. ... D [23/Jan/2006:21:16:00 +0200] [Job 64] Unable to open MFP port device file!: Cannot allocate memory E [23/Jan/2006:21:16:00 +0200] PID 10839 stopped with status 2!
Eventually I found that replacing /usr/lib/cups/backend/mfp by a shell script
#!/bin/sh modprobe usblp < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 cat - > /dev/usblp0
fixed the problem. Apparently, the mfp backend does not do anything special when the USB interface is used. In this case, the propiertary program apparently somehow failed to recognize that the printer was present.
On Dapper Samsung's libqt-mt also caused considerable trouble as the SANE driver would use the system's version. The only satisfactory way (so that also QT apps would work at the same time as the scanner) I found was to use sane daemon, and to relink libsane-samsung_scx4100.so.1 and libqt-mt.samsung-mfp.so.3.0.4 with rpath set properly. (The libs can be relinked with a command like "ld -shared -o new-lib.so old-lib.so -rpath /usr/local/lib/samsung -rpath-link /usr/local/lib/samsung", adjust to suit your configuration.)
In short, endless frustrating tinkering. I hope Samsung will make their drivers simpler in the future.
Thanks to all for the comments on the draft tutorial on the linuxprinting.org mailing list and in direct e-mail.
In my installation (Ubuntu 5.10 "Breezy Badger"), the problem with qt libraries did not arise. Others have reported that it does. It appears that one still needs to check.
Another step, over and above what I wrote in the first draft, is necessary: it appears that the installation does not add regular users to the "lp" group with permissions to use the MFP device. The users succeed in accessing the printer during the session in which it was installed, but not after a re-boot (!!!). The solution is explicitly to add users who need to access the printer to the "lp" group.
Well, I'd like to chip in with my experience. In Canada, Samsung does not support the penguin. The box has the support statement on it, it's a Canadian 1-800 number on a sticker inside, but they don't support it. Yeesh.
In any case, the driver, downloaded from Samsung February 1 or so, 2006, worked fine. Everything was working at first. Scanner, printer. Both worked fine.
After I rebooted, however, a regular user could not find a scanner. I tried scanimage -L, and it got no scanner. I tried sane-find-scanner, and it got a scanner identified, on USB:001:003 or something like that.
I try scanimage -L as root, and it works fine. My workaround until I find the solution is to scan as root - not very satisfactory.
I'm running Fedora 4, so I have kernel 2.6.something_or_another.
Any suggestions?
Wow, do I ever need to read every word in a howto...
I have finally figured out the problem I identified above.
I read the top of this message again. Shane had to change the permissions to /dev/usb/lp0 for the scanner to work. Samsung says that you can't scan and print at the same time.
<insert lightbulb here>
I added a line in the libusbscanner permissions setting thing in the /etc/hotplug/usb section. It reports what scanner is detected, and where. The permissions for that device were correctly set. I still couldn't scan.
I changed the permissions on /dev/usb/lp0 and suddenly I could scan. By default, it set the permissions to crw-rw---- 1 root lp 180, 0 Feb 15 07:03 /dev/usb/lp0
So, I did this: sudo chmod a+rwx /dev/usb/lp0
And scanimage -L worked.
In the end, I'm going to add my users to the lp group, since it's a home server anyway. Any user should be able to kill print jobs or scan.
Thanks everyone for the comments about this device and how to get it to work under Linux. The installation scripts looked a bit scary to me, so I just grabbed the files Shane mentioned in his original post and created a RPM out of them. Both printing (using cups) and scanning (using xsane-gimp) work fine for me with this rpm. The source and binary packages (for Fedora Core 5t2 on x86) are available at http://oskari.saarenmaa.fi/rpm/ . To recompile it for a different distribution run rpmbuild --rebuild samsung*.src.rpm .
The easy way to get this working is to install the latest driver from their web site.
Samsung has just released a new "unified" driver. It seems to fix the libqt problems. Everything seems to be working fine with Gentoo so far which is a huge improvement
7/27/06 success with scx-4100. Worked great on Debian with the Samsung drivers from their website, except network scanning doesn't seem to work (memory allocation crash on the client side).
Had a bit more trouble on Dapper. As someone mentioned, you need to mount -t usbfs none /proc/bus/usb and set up a symlink from /dev/usblp0 to /dev/usb/lp0.
Scanning programs seem to segfault unless run as root or with the suid bit. Anyone know why? Permissions on /dev/usblp0 are fine for my user.
I downloaded the drivers and rebuilt the src.rpm prepared by Oskari, after a long fight with the samsung installer (both the Nov 2005 version and the recent version from July this year) - and tried to run xsane: my mandriva scanner config tool says it can see the device:
"The following scanner
- SAMSUNG SCX-4100 on USB:O Flatbed Scanner
is available on your system."
Yet xsane can't see it, neither in normal nor in root mode.
The July 2006 drivers caused various strange problems - i.e. recently each time I run xsane I received a root mode warning - and indeed, it always runs with all the root privileges, beyond my control, with CUPS turning itself off all the time, complaining about lacking buffer space et al.
Anybody with an idea what can be done to make sane/xsane work?
Greetings, Bartek
I tried network scanning with the new "unified" driver but the printer's scanner doesn't seem to be recognized. Is anyone having the same problem ?
Thanks Christophe
