Dell Printer Software

ajbarnes · Post by **ajbarnes** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 5:20 pm

Short version of a long story:

My wife and I just got a Dell V313w. It's a great printer, we love it. We just can't use it.

We're a Mac family and it seems this printer requires it's Window's based software to fully enable it's capability (scanning and sending over WiFi for example).

Mac OS X will not print to it directly over any connection methods (USB, WiFi, SMB Share) due to lack of appropriate driver.

I could run Dell's proprietary software in a virtual machine but I would rather not use up that much memory just to print. And Bootcamping it would be silly.

Finally we get down to the question: What are the chances of getting Dell's software running on Snow Leopard using Wine? When I attempt the install, it says the Windows Spooler Service is not running.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 5:26 pm

On 16 February 2010 22:20, ajbarnes <[email protected]> wrote:

My wife and I just got a Dell V313w. It's a great printer, we love it. We just can't use it.
We're a Mac family and it seems this printer requires it's Window's based software to fully enable it's capability (scanning and sending over WiFi for example).
Mac OS X will not print to it directly over any connection methods (USB, WiFi, SMB Share) due to lack of appropriate driver.
I could run Dell's proprietary software in a virtual machine but I would rather not use up that much memory just to print. And Bootcamping it would be silly.

TinyXP is actually surprisingly small and, for a single program, would
run fine in 128MB.

Finally we get down to the question: What are the chances of getting Dell's software running on Snow Leopard using Wine? When I attempt the install, it says the Windows Spooler Service is not running.

If it's a printer *driver* you haven't a hope and should rely on CUPS
(which Mac OS X and Linux use, and Apple actually develops now).

But it appears you're talking about a userland program, i.e. what Wine
appears to run. So there may be hope! Even if I don't know what it is.

- d.

ajbarnes · Post by **ajbarnes** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 5:47 pm

David Gerard wrote: TinyXP is actually surprisingly small and, for a single program, would
run fine in 128MB.

If it's a printer *driver* you haven't a hope and should rely on CUPS
(which Mac OS X and Linux use, and Apple actually develops now).

But it appears you're talking about a userland program, i.e. what Wine
appears to run. So there may be hope! Even if I don't know what it is.

- d.

Interesting thoughts David, thanks for your reply.

The driver is included with Dell's software suite that makes all the bells and whistles work. I really would like the feature of scanning an image, and it send via WiFi over my network.

When I try installing the Dell printing software using WineBottler on Snow Leopard, the setup starts and says:

"The Windows Spooler Service cannot be started. Installation of your printer cannot continue until you correct this problem."

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 6:23 pm

On 16 February 2010 22:47, ajbarnes <[email protected]> wrote:

The driver is included with Dell's software suite that makes all the bells and whistles work. I really would like the feature of scanning an image, and it send via WiFi over my network.
When I try installing the Dell printing software using WineBottler on Snow Leopard, the setup starts and says:
"The Windows Spooler Service cannot be started. Installation of your printer cannot continue until you correct this problem."

This is a page of developer notes from 2008 on printing in Wine:

http://wiki.winehq.org/Printing

This includes no plans to implement the Windows Spooler Service, as
CUPS does spooling just fine.

OTOH, you have a real-life application that claims to need it ... I'd
suggest filing a Wine bug! (Is the Dell software downloadable for devs
to test with?)

- d.

Martin Gregorie · Post by **Martin Gregorie** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:05 pm

On Tue, 2010-02-16 at 16:20 -0600, ajbarnes wrote:

Short version of a long story:

My wife and I just got a Dell V313w. It's a great printer, we love it. We just can't use it.

It's at least partially CUPS-supported. As OS X apparently also uses
CUPS it seems to be worth following up on. I'm a Linux person, not an
OS-X person so can't say more. See:

http://www.openprinting.org/show_printe ... Dell-V313w

Martin

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 9:22 pm

How does the WiFi work? Is it just a regular network that would allow filesharing to send the files to print? If so, you could just connect to that network...

If it uses some other (possibly proprietary) method, you'll probably need the driver and will be out of luck if it's not available in CUPS.

ajbarnes · Post by **ajbarnes** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 9:52 pm

I'm installing the additional printer support from my OS X DVD that came with my Mac Mini.

If this does not include a driver that works, I may consider running XP in a virtual machine and just being done with it.

I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks to everyone who has replied!

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:34 pm

ajbarnes wrote:I'm installing the additional printer support from my OS X DVD that came with my Mac Mini.

If this does not include a driver that works, I may consider running XP in a virtual machine and just being done with it.

Not sure if this will work... VMs usually rely on the host operating system to access the hardware, especially since you need the extra rights and all... But I may be wrong.

Post by **dimesio** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:17 pm

I'm installing the additional printer support from my OS X DVD that came with my Mac Mini.

If that doesn't work...

Dell has Linux drivers for this printer on its website--there are binary packages for Ubuntu and openSUSE.

Now, my understanding (admittedly limited) is that all CUPS needs is a ppd file for the printer, and ppd files are platform-independent. If you can extract the ppd file from one of the Linux binaries, you might be able to install it in CUPS on a Mac.

perryh · Post by **perryh** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 4:12 am

"dimesio" <[email protected]> wrote:

...
Now, my understanding (admittedly limited) is that all CUPS needs is
a ppd file for the printer, and ppd files are platform-independent.

A ppd file may be all that CUPS needs to support a PostScript printer,
but others usually need something more -- sometimes a _lot_ more.

newcomer200 · Post by **newcomer200** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:56 pm

What worked for me was using the Mac driver for Lexmark Impact S305 (I think the driver is specifically S300-400).