Lexmark's Linux Secret

[yvesvanbelle]

as negated said, not being able to scan is because your running it as a network printer (cable or wireless), if you hook it up as usb printer this will work. As far as I know this is also the case for HP printer/scanner combo's

I use a Brother MFC and i can scan over network. This is possible for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is all in the scannerdriver.

[tester]

Nice for printers already bought but for new ones I'd still opt for HP due to there very nice opensource HPLIP which provides a great out-of-the-box experience on almost every Linux-distribution.

Is Lexmark planning on providing opensource drivers in the future?

[mugginz]

I have not used all that many wireless all-in-one printer/scanner combos, but all the ones I have used don't actually allow you to scan from the PC side when in wireless/ethernet mode either in Windows, Linux, etc.

The Canon MP-640 allows you to both print from and scan to a Linux machine via Wi-FI and it works absolutely brilliantly.

[Xilanaz]

as negated said, not being able to scan is because your running it as a network printer (cable or wireless), if you hook it up as usb printer this will work. As far as I know this is also the case for HP printer/scanner combo's

[negated]

I have not used all that many wireless all-in-one printer/scanner combos, but all the ones I have used don't actually allow you to scan from the PC side when in wireless/ethernet mode either in Windows, Linux, etc. No scanner is detected (which would explain your XSane woes), and therefore no direct driver support. In my experience that is normal. If the printer had been hooked up via USB, I think you would have been able to use the scanner as you expected to.

I have a Lexmark X4650 here and it has the same behavior, except what is REALLY nice is that when I set up the scan at the local device it allows me to choose what computer on the network by hostname I want the scan to be sent to and also picks up a list of compatible applications on that host and asks what application format (PDF, DOC, etc) I would like the scan to saved to! I get back to my desk and it is open and running in the application. Slick!

-S

[mugginz]

Do they support the yellow microscopic dots as well?

I forgot all about those.

[yvesvanbelle]

Great, Lexmark gives you a multifunction printer and then you can only print. I use a Brother multifunction and i can print, scan and even send faxes from my Ubuntu or Mandriva.

You can find the drivers below and the drivers work on 32-bit and 64-bit

http://solutions.brother.com/linux

[V!NCENT]

Do they support the yellow microscopic dots as well?

[tball]

Samsung also offers great linux support. They even have a linux gui installation app on their driver cd. Though I think they are proprietary, but I don't know for sure.

Well they work as a charm at least.

[xeros]

The test should cover the USB printing, too.
And more printers should be tested (especialy those cheap/cheapest inkjet Lexmark printers).
I've got many Lexmark laser ethernet printers from few years and those work out of the box on many Linux distributions on default PostScript drivers but up to now I've been getting off from any Lexmark inkjet printers because of lack of Linux support.