Introduction

With the release 17, Linux Mint is better than ever! However, there are some bugs, one of them concerning the driver installation for certain Epson printers. In this case, Mint's Printers tool (also called system-config-printer) gets stuck about halfway through the driver installation for some Epson printers, among them the XP-102 and XP-103 models. In this tutorial I will go though the steps required to get these all-in-one printers working in Linux Mint 17. No previous knowledge of Linux Mint is required to follow the instructions of this guide.

This guide was written and tested for Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon edition, but if you have previous experience in using Linux, you should be able to use information on this guide for other editions as well. This guide also assumes that your user account has Administrator privileges.

This tutorial is divided into two sections: installation of the printer driver, and installation of the scanner driver.

Section one: Installing drivers for the printer

1. Add Epson's software repository to your system.

NOTE: If you attempted to install the printer through the Printers tool and had the installation freeze, you already have the repository in your software sources and you can skip this step.

For Linux Mint to utilise Epson's software repository without security warnings at every update, we'll first need to add the repository's authentication key.

Open Software Sources either from Menu -> Administration -> Software Sources or opening the Menu, typing "sources" without the quotes to the search bar, and pressing Enter. You will be required to enter your password. Do so.

In the Software Sources window, press the "Authentication keys" button on the left side of the window, then press the "Download key" button at the bottom of the window. In the input box of the small window, enter the following line:

E5E86C008AA65D56

and press "OK".

Now, back in Software Sources, press the "Additional repositories" button, then press the "Add a new repository" button at the bottom of the window. In the input box of the small window, replace the highlighted text with the following line:

deb http://download.ebz.epson.net/dsc/op/stable/debian/ lsb3.2 main

and press "OK". Now press the "Update the cache" button on the upper right corner of the window. A window with a progress bar will appear, stay there for a few moments, and then close by itself. Now close the Software Sources window.

2. Installing the printer driver

Open the Software Manager either from Menu -> Administration -> Software Manager or opening the Menu, typing "software manager" without the quotes to the search bar, and pressing Enter. Enter your password. On the Software Manager window, select Edit -> Preferences -> Search in packages description (even slower search) from the menu bar. Now select the search bar at the upper right corner of the window and type into it eithe XP-102 or XP-102, depending on your model of printer, and then press Enter. The search may take a while, but eventually you'll land on a search page with one or two results. Double-click on the "epson-inkjet-printer-201202w" search result, then click on the Install button in the right side of the blue bar on the following page. A progress bar at the bottom of the window will start. When the progress bar disappears, the installation is finished.

You can now turn on your printer. If your printer was on the whole time, turn it off and on again. You should see a notification on the top right of the screen, saying that your printer is being configured, and soon another one stating that the configuration was successful.

The printer driver is now installed. You can try printing a test page by opening Mint's Printers tool, right-clicking your printer's icon, selecting "Properties", and pressing the "Print Test Page" from the bottom of the window.

Section two: Installing drivers for the scanner.

The driver we previously installed was only for the printing functionality of this multi-function device. The packages required for the scanning functionality aren't available from the standard repositories of Linux Mint, and Epson hasn't made them available from their repository either. The only place to download these packages from is Epson's website.

1. Installing the scanner driver

Point your web browser to the following address: http://download.ebz.epson.net/dsc/search/01/search/?OSC=LX

The page contains a search form. Type into it either XP-102 or XP-103, depending on your device model. Then press Enter. On the search results page, locate the result that belongs to the Scanner Driver category (it should be the lower one), and click the Download button on the rightmost side of the search result. A new tab should open. Scroll to the bottom of the newly opened tab and click "Accept" to accept Epson's Software License Agreement (required to download the software).

Scroll down the page to see the list of downloadable files. You will only need to download and install two of these files. The first one is labeled "iscan-data_1.29.0-2_all.deb". Click the Download button on the right side of the file name and save it to your Downloads folder. The second file you'll need is named either "iscan_2.29.3-1~usb0.1.ltdl7_i386.deb" or "iscan_2.29.3-1~usb0.1.ltdl7_amd64.deb", depending on version of Linux Mint. If you're using the 32-bit version, you need to download the one ending in "i386.deb", if you have the 64-bit version you need the one ending in "amd64.deb". If you don't know which version you have, you can find out by opening the System Info tool from Menu -> Preferences -> System Info. You'll see the version you're using from the Operating System section.

After you've downloaded the two packages you need, open the file manager by clicking on the green folder icon near the Menu. Navigate to your Downloads folder and double-click on the first file you downloaded, "iscan-data_1.29.0-2_all.deb". This will open the Package Installer, which to take a moment to load the package. After a while you should see a "Install Package" button on the top right of the window. Click the button and enter your password. A small installation window will open. After it reports that the installation was successful, close the window and the Package Installer. Repeat this for other file you downloaded. After both packages have been installed, turn on the printer on or, if the printer is already on, turn it off and on again.

The scanner should now be functional. You can test it by opening Linux Mint's scanning application Simple Scan from Menu -> Graphics -> Simple Scan and pressing the Scan button. You can also use the Epson-provided Image Scan!, which can be found from Menu -> Graphics -> Image Scan! for Linux.

If you have any problems or feedback regarding this tutorial. please leave a comment.

UPDATE 30.07.2014: Fixed some typos.