First, let me take a moment to shower abuses on Ricoh to royally assume that Windows and Mac are the only two operating systems used by customers. I just bought a Ricoh Aficio SP 111 printer, and found that I couldn’t locate any drivers for Ubuntu, nor was one available in Ubuntu’s repositories. Thanks to the open source phenomenon, I was able to modify a ppd written by Serge V Shistarev, and available on Github. A couple of minutes later, the printer was happily churning away pages.
To install the printer in Ubuntu, first you need to install a couple of dependencies:
Install pbmtojbg and inotify-wait:
sudo apt-get install jbigkit-bin inotify-tools
Now install the cups driver:
git clone [email protected]:droidzone/ricoh-sp100.git
All credits to Serge V Shistarev for the original PPD for Ricoh SP 100
Copy the file pstoricohddst-gdi to the directory containing cups filters:
sudo cp pstoricohddst-gdi /usr/lib/cups/filter/ sudo chown root:root /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstoricohddst-gdi
Now open the Printers applet:
Add Printer
Choose Ricoh SP 111
Choose ppd file (RICOH_Aficio_SP_111.ppd)
Note: If you’re unable to select the ppd file by the above steps, try the following:
To add printer from the ppd file:
In your web browser, navigate to http://localhost:631/
CUPS for Administrators > Adding Printers and Classes
Printers > Add a printer
Enter your root username and password
When your printer is connected and switched on Ubuntu should detect it and assign it a name. Select that printer right now. Click next a couple of times until you reach the section where you’re asked to select the ppd file.
At this point, choose the file RICOH_Aficio_SP_111.ppd which should have got cloned by github. Click next and it will say your printer is successfully installed. Check by giving a test print.
Joel G Mathew, known in tech circles by the pseudonym Droidzone, is an opensource and programming enthusiast.
He is a full stack developer, whose favorite languages are currently Python and Vue.js. He is also fluent in Javascript, Flutter/Dart, Perl, PHP, SQL, C and bash shell scripting. He loves Linux, and can often be found tinkering with linux kernel code, and source code for GNU applications. He used to be an active developer on XDA forums, and his tinkered ROMS used to be very popular in the early 2000s.
His favorite pastime is grappling with GNU compilers, discovering newer Linux secrets, writing scripts, hacking roms, and programs (nothing illegal), reading, blogging. and testing out the latest gadgets.
When away from the tech world, Dr Joel G. Mathew is a practising ENT Surgeon, busy with surgeries and clinical practise.