Setting up Samsung Wireless Printer on Linux

Published on April 21, 2014; updated on September 9, 2017

Here’s a complete guide for setting up a wireless Samsung printer on Linux, where by “setting up” I mean making it connect to your wireless network.

It worked for me with Samsung ML-2165W on Debian GNU/Linux «jessie», but should work for other models and distributions, too.

Connecting Samsung printer to a wireless network

Create a new, temporary user. We’ll use it to launch Samsung’s wireless setup utility. This is optional, but it provides an additional layer of security (who knows what those utilities from Samsung do behind the scenes) and ensures that nothing will mess with your system.

We add the new user to the lp group, so that it can talk to the printer.
```
 user$ sudo useradd --create-home --shell /bin/bash --groups lp samsung
```
Allow the new user to use our display. (Samsung’s utility is graphical.)
```
 user$ xhost +local:samsung
```
Now, time to switch to our temporary user.
```
 user$ sudo -E su samsung
```
Download Samsung’s PSU (“Printer Settings Utility”) archive from their website. Unpack it and go to the wirelesssetup directory.
```
 samsung$ wget http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/content/DR/201110/20111019151150392/PSU_1.01.tar.gz
 samsung$ tar xzf PSU_1.01.tar.gz
 samsung$ cd cdroot/Linux/wirelesssetup
```
(If Samsung’s link doesn’t work, here is a backup of that archive.)
Check if there are any missing dynamic libraries:
```
 samsung$ ldd bin64/wirelesssetup  | grep 'not found'
```
(Note: this is for a 64-bit system. On a 32-bit system, replace bin64 with bin.)

In my case, the output was
```
 libnetsnmp.so.10 => not found
```
This particular library is included in the PSU archive, so we load it by
```
 samsung$ export LD_PRELOAD=$PWD/../psu/share/lib64/libnetsnmp.so.10.0.2
```
(Likewise, replace lib64 with lib on a 32-bit system.)

If there are more missing libraries, first see if your distribution ships them. The major versions must match! E.g. Debian jessie ships libnetsnmp.so.30.0.2, which has the major version number 30, so that won’t do.

If libstdc++.so.5 is missing, it may be provided by a compatibility package (e.g. compat-libstdc++-33 on Fedora 26).

If your distribution doesn’t have the right version, use a resource like http://rpm.pbone.net/ to find a package that has one. Unpack it (do not install!) and set LD_PRELOAD and/or LD_LIBRARY_PATH so that they are found.
Now connect the printer via a USB cable to the Linux machine and run
```
 samsung$ bin64/wirelesssetup /dev/usb/lp0
```
A graphical window should appear, where you’ll be able to choose your wireless network and enter the password to it.
After you made the printer connect to the wireless network, you can logout and remove the temporary user. Note that the command below will remove that user’s home directory.
```
 user$ sudo userdel --remove samsung
```

Configuring the printer

This PPD file worked well for me with this printer model.