Installing Samsung printer and scanner driver

Hardware Support
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Thank you carmar for all your help on this issue.

I believe I have now sorted it out and replicated it on one other computer to make sure.

The following are steps I took to install a Samsung CLX3305FW multifunction printer that is on my local home network. It’s a combination of the steps you suggested above. Hopefully it works for others but my situation may be unique - who knows. So here are the steps as cleanly as I can describe.

The issue: Zorin automatically detects my networked printer on start up and installs drivers it assumes will work however whatever it installs does not seem to work in my case. Printing is limited/problematic and there is no scanning access. See my OP. And no matter how many times I remove the printer from the Settings -> Printers menu, it reinstalls the printer right away.

Solution:

  1. Install Synaptic if you havent as this simplifies some of the steps below. See above how to install this. Use Synaptic to search for samsung and remove all samsung printer packages. In my case it was printer-driver-splix and it had a red-orange icon. I also used the terminal when needed or convenient based on the steps described in the links I used below.

  2. Download the Samsung linux driver from
    https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/samsung-clx-3305-color-laser-multifunction-printer-series/17156918
    You will have to choose manually the OS and version, in my case linux, ubuntu. The driver will be Samsung Linux Print and Scan Driver v1.00.39_01.17, size 14.8 MB, 1 Sep 2017.

  3. From terminal use lpstat -a to list the printers. Then lpadmin -x <PrinterName> where for PrinterName I copied and pasted from the list. I am not sure if this step was needed, seeing that my printer gets automatically reinstalled, but I did it anyway.

  4. I then followed the steps in
    https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/samsung-printers.html
    particularly their step 6. Although the steps in this link say it is now installed, for me I saw no new printer even after reboot and updating. Even Synaptic, doing a search for samsung, did not see the drivers to be installed.

  5. This site that was referred to below suggested that I needed to create a repository.
    https://tutorialforlinux.com/2018/03/26/ubuntu-18-04-samsung-printer-driver-install-guide/
    Some of the links on this site seem to be missing or corrupt, at least for me, so I used the steps described in
    https://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/index.html
    following the directions in “Setting Up the Repository”. I used Synaptic in these steps. After doing this I was able to see the packages listed in Synaptic.

  6. I then followed the instructions in “Selecting Packages to Install”.
    It recommended that if you were having trouble, which I had, to use the Minimum Version found here
    https://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/supported.html
    So I chose suld-driver-4.00.39 for my CLX3300 rather than the latest driver like I did before.

  7. It also suggested that if you wanted to use Samsung’s GUI to install a configurator package. It recommended suld-configurator-2-qt4 for my printer.

  8. I selected items in 6 and 7 above in Synaptic and installed them.

  9. Then Settings -> Printers menu and added the printer Samsung CLX now listed. Once it did its thing, it showed up with toner details and status. Under Systems Tools menu, the Samsung Unified Driver GUI showed up and allowed me to interact with the printer and scanner. Text now prints as true black and white. Simple Scan also connected with the scanner and successfully scanned.

  10. I am now a happy camper. :grinning:

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