The Electrical and Computer Engineering department has a number of Xerox printers that are leased through the University. This web page has instructions on how to print to these printers from a computer running the Linux operating system.
The first step is to download the driver. All the AltaLink and VersaLink models we have use the same driver download package. Go to the Xerox driver download page and choose either the rpm file if you're running a version of RedHat and clones, or the deb file if you're running ubuntu.
Install the package on your system. It creates a /opt/Xerox directory containing an installation program and drivers.
Open a terminal window and run the command 'cd /opt/Xerox/prtsys' then run ./xeroxprtmgr as an administrator. It will give you a window like that shown below.
Click on the leftmost of the three icons above the blank pane (the one that looks like a down arrow). Then you'll get a window like that shown below. If you're on wireless then the printer discovery may never complete or result in a crash. If that's the case then just turn off wireless and you should get the window below, but without any printers in it. Then you can turn wireless back on again.
If the Xerox printer that you want is shown then click on it to highlight it, if not then carry on with the instructions in the next sentence. Click on the rightmost button above the printers pane and select 'Manual Install' to get the window below.
Enter a 'Queue Name' of your choice. That will be the name of the printer that is displayed to you when you print. If you selected a discovered printer then it should have the correct driver highlighted. If not then enter the name or IP address of the printer you want to install in the IP/DNS box and choose the driver for that printer yourself in the 'Printer Model' pane. The names of the Xerox printers in the department are show at the bottom of this page.
You can check the box next to 'Make This My Default Printer' if you would like it to be the default.
When the printer queue has been created and you print to the printer from any application, it will come up with an additional window (shown below) at that time that gives you the choice of many different printer features, like duplex, number of copies, paper size and tray, secure print and more. Select the options you want, if any, and click Print to print the job or Cancel to cancel it. If you don't want this window to show when you print, then click on the box next to 'Disable User Interface' in the window above when you create the printer. Then print jobs will just print to the printer with defaults and not display the selection box below.
Technical note: Users will notice when they print that two print queues are created by this process. One has the name that you gave it during installation and the other looks more cryptic, like _xeroxtq1_. Use the one that has the name you created. The other is just the additional driver that provides the option selection box above, so you don't want to print to that name directly.
The Xerox printers and models that I know of in the department are listed here:
- ecexerox1.uwaterloo.ca - AltaLink B8045 - room EIT 3033D
- ecexerox3.prt.uwaterloo.ca - AltaLink B8045 - room EIT 3033D
- ecexerox4.uwaterloo.ca - AltaLink B8045 - room E5 4133
- ecexerox5.prt.uwaterloo.ca - VersaLink C7030 MFP - room EIT 3033D
- cseng-prn.prt.uwaterloo.ca - VersaLink B7035 MFP - room DC 2539
- starxerox.prt.uwaterloo.ca - VersaLinkB405DN MFP - room DC 2635
- cst1.prt.uwaterloo.ca - VersaLink B7035 MFP - room DC 2728