Install Samsung SCX-4300 manually without the installer of Unified Driver

Originally tested on openSUSE 11.4 x86_64

UPDATE 2019-01: openSUSE Leap 15.0

UPDATE 2022-01: openSUSE Leap 15.2 // Support for Samsung printers by HP

Original: Today I spent the half day to set up my printer/scanner combo Samsung SCX-4300 on my Desktop PC which is running openSUSE 11.4 currently. I guess half of the trouble is on behalf of the manufacturer and the the rest is caused by the difference between 64bit Linux distributions.

Samsung provides drivers for Linux but they are not officially supported or advertised (thanks anyway). In gerneral they are working although they will install their (for Gnome users) nasty applications. But they are not distribution specific. The package Samsung Unified Driver (release date 2011/01/19 by the time of writing) contains a install.sh script for all distributions. No doubt that this can't work in any case. I analyzed it to get the directions.

Update: Find Version 4.00.39 here (unofficial)! //

Update 2022: New version: 4.01.17 ^^ // HP provide its binary driver here.

This article describes How to install Samsung SCX-4300 on openSUSE 11.4 x86_64 manually. Be aware that there's no uninstall mechanism, naturally. Also in the sense of open source there isn't. Files used are provided by manufacturer precompiled! I can describe how to do it but I'm not allowed to make a package for you.

Please leave a comment if it worked for you. I may write my own install script then. Especially I'm interested in your distribution and whether its 32 oder 64bits.

1) First make sure that the device is recognized properly (in my case it was connected to USB 3.0 at first which made trouble):

linux-xyz:~ # lsusb | grep Samsung
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 04e8:342e Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd

2) Download Samsung Unified Driver (UPDATE 4.0.0.39) and unpack it (as unprivileged user):

cd ~
wget http://bit.ly/qMSqsn
tar xf UnifiedLinuxDriver.tar.gz
cd cdroot

Inside "cdroot" you can see the directory "Linux" which contains the install.sh. Don't use it if you want to follow my lead. If you have installed the Unified Driver before uninstall it using uninstall.sh! Also you can see that the files are divided between i386, x86_64 and noarch. This will help you to adjust the following steps to your needs. UPDATE: I installed the unofficial 4.0.0.39 which works, but you have to live with the qt-UI!

Get root:

su

3) Install the scanner

rpm -q sane-backends sane-backends-autoconfig

sane-backends-1.0.22-1.3.3.x86_64
sane-backends-autoconfig-1.0.22-1.5.1.x86_64

zypper in sane-backends sane-backends-autoconfig

cp ./Linux/noarch/at_root/etc/sane.d/smfp.conf /etc/sane.d/

cp ./Linux/x86_64/at_root/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-smfp.so.1.0.1 /usr/lib64/sane/
ln -s /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-smfp.so.1.0.1 /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-smfp.so.1
ln -s /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-smfp.so.1.0.1 /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-smfp.so

cp ./Linux/x86_64/at_root/usr/lib64/libmfp.so.1.0.1 /usr/lib64/
ln -s /usr/lib64/libmfp.so.1.0.1 /usr/lib64/libmfp.so.1
ln -s /usr/lib64/libmfp.so.1.0.1 /usr/lib64/libmfp.so

ACTION!="add", GOTO="smfp_label_end"

# Check device type
ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", GOTO="smfp_create_usb_dev"

# Check SUBSYSTEM (should be either "usb" or "usb_device")
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", GOTO="smfp_create_usb_dev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device", GOTO="smfp_create_usb_dev"

GOTO="smfp_label_end"

LABEL="smfp_create_usb_dev"

# Check Vendor ID
ATTR{idVendor}!="04e8", GOTO="smfp_label_end"

ATTRS{idProduct}=="342e", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"

ENV{libsane_matched}=="yes", OWNER="root", MODE="664", GROUP="lp"

LABEL="smfp_label_end"

Now you can try the scanner (use xsane for example).

4) Install the printer:

If you use the Unified Driver you can access the printer at the USB-Port using mfp:/dev/mfp4. We will use the native usb which comes with cups instead.

a) Copy the driver files to where cups will look for them:

cp ./Linux/x86_64/at_root/usr/lib64/cups/backend/mfp /usr/lib64/cups/backend/
cp ./Linux/x86_64/at_root/usr/lib64/cups/filter/* /usr/lib64/cups/filter/

Note the lib64 part of the path. Because those files are binary this would be the right location. But (for some reason) cups will search the filter file at the 32bit location. So you have to copy them (the 64bit binaries!) to the 32bit path:

cp /usr/lib64/cups/filter/* /usr/lib/cups/filter/

Beside the filters and the backend cups need a description file for postscript, too. You have to pack it yourself:

cat ./Linux/noarch/at_opt/share/ppd/scx4300.ppd | gzip -9 > scx4300.ppd.gz

cp scx4300.ppd.gz /usr/share/cups/model/samsung/

rm scx4300.ppd.gz