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Getting Canon Pixma MP560 to work in Mint 12 amd64 (and Ubuntu 11.10)

canon pixma mp560

canon pixma mp560

Update, December 2012

Moving forward to Mint Nandia (based on Ubuntu 12.10), Michael’s drivers in canon-trunk suport two-sided printing! At last!

Update, May 2012.

Moving forward to Mint Maya (based on Ubuntu 12.04), I found that Michael’s Canon repository did not have a driver version for Precise and that the previous ones used in Oneiric, would not work.

In order to solve this problem, you need to follow these steps:

  • Uninstall the existing canon drivers
  • Remove the existing canon repository from your sources
  • Add the new repository:

[code]sudo add-apt-repository ppa:michael-gruz/canon-trunk
sudo apt-get update[/code]

  • Re-install the drivers corresponding to your printer, with Synaptic. You may have to use the i386 packages if amd64 ones are not available. They will still work!

Update, Feb 6, 2012

While trying out Mint 12 (amd64) with the brilliant Cinnamon flavour of Gnome 3, I tried to repeat the steps mentioned in the original post, in order to get the printer to work. I failed miserably, because I could not get over the problem with the library libpopt0:386. It appears to be required as a dependency for installation, but when trying to do that, all mint packages are forced to uninstall!

I thought I had to install the original Ubuntu Oneiric in order for the printer to work, that it was some kind of a Mint/Cinnamon bug. But that did not work either… Anyone who’s been there will know that this is a show stopper… You may read on several posts, how difficult it is to set up Canon printers in current amd64 distributions with Gnome 3.

And then, the solution came! There’s a fine gentleman who has set up a LaunchPad ppa (a personal repository) with almost all Canon drivers. And they work! As an added bonus, you also get some utils installed that monitor ink level, etc.Thank you Michael!! You just saved Canon on Linux!

All you have to do is fire up a terminal and do the following:

Add the repo and then the drivers

[code]sudo add-apt-repository ppa:michael-gruz/canon
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cnijfilter-XXXXseries[/code]

where XXXX is your printer model (i.e. MP560). If not sure, go to Synaptic and install the drivers from there. All other required packages (“common”) will pop up automatically, either on the terminal or in Synaptic.

Restart CUPS

[code]sudo service cups restart[/code]

and then type

[code]sudo system-config-printer[/code]

This last trick with help you set up a new printer, instead of using the standard Gnome 3 applet, which currently has a bug and complains about not running FirewallD.

In order to connect to the printer wirelessly, I clicked on “add a new printer”, picked “Network” and the printer was recognized automagically. Bliss!

PS: The only downside is that automatic two-sided printing will not work any more… at least in my case.

Update, April 2011 – Fix the wireless scanning!

In order to get the scanner working wirelessly, follow the instructions at Moritz89’s blog. The only thing I had to do differently was to download version 2.6.11 of libgimp2.0 from the getdeb repository that I was using. Then, instead of force-installing it, I extracted its contents and then copied the files of the directory “usr/lib” inside the package, into my linux system’s “/lib32”.

After creating a launcher for scangearmp, I started the program and it found the scanner right away! After that, I installed the excellent scanning program “xsane” and I was set! Great work Moritz89!

Update, Dec 31 2010

Moritz89’s packages worked just fine on Linux Mint Debian 201012 64-bit!

Original post:

When I effortlessly set up Pixma MP560 on my significant other’s windows-based laptop, wirelessly, I thought all would be easy-peachy. But it wasn’t.

First thing, Canon does not have 64bit drivers for Linux. However, apparently one can install 32bit drivers on a 64 bit system; I didn’t know that.

Only problem was, there was no way I could get this to work! The deb packages were installed alright; I could see the printer driver ppd file; I could ping the printer’s address; I could log on to the printer’s web interface; In “Control Panel” –> “Printing” (or “Administration” –> “Printing”), I could select “add printer”, then point to the printer as a network printer, by specifying its IP (had made it static), and the printer would be found (“passthrough”). All would seem to be ok, but it would still not print the test page and, no matter what, I could never get it to work after installation.

Trying to approach this from a different angle, I even modified the installer from Canon’s driver download page (so that it would include the “force architecture” option). The installer would run fine in the terminal with [code]sudo ./install.sh[/code] and then the packages would be re-installed, but… the printer would still not be found on the wireless network.

Since I was in the process of re-installing distribution anyway (from LMDE to Julia), I made some test dist installs and tried the Canon installer on Mint Debian (LMDE) 32bit and Mint Julia (10RC) 32bit (based on Ubuntu 10.10) – and it worked fine. But with Mint 10RC 64bit… nothing. The persistent problem was that the installer would not find the printer over the wireless. I tried all voodoo known to geeks. I even allowed inbound connections from the printer’s IP in the firewall and installed the generic 32bit compatibility libraries (ia32), I mean, I tried everything! The only thing I did not try, was to sacrifice a goat! 😉

I then bumped into Moritz89’s Blog, who has looked into this matter very thoroughly. He has also taken the trouble to provide an appropriately modified zip file with the drivers, making the process much easier! Mind you, the solution proposed there would still not work for me! But I had the chance to start asking him some questions and then, out of the blue… epiphany!

The drivers were already installed, OK? So, what if I tried to install the printer via the CUPS server? I remembered reading about it at Linux Mint’s forums, somewhere in all the posts I searched through… Well, you guessed it…

I typed [code]http://localhost:631[/code] in the browser and logged on as “root” with  “my account’s password”. I pressed “Administration” –> “Find new printers”, et voilà! Printer found! I then completed the process by selecting printer make, model and ppd (already installed from previous attempts).

I have a working printer now. And it prints great!

Stratos Laspas
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4 Σχόλια

  1. Stratos Laspas

    Thanks, you’re welcome!

  2. ThePowerCoder

    Wow! Thanks so much for the article. I went through so much trying to get my printer to work and this tutorial got it done for me in minutes. I greatly appreciate it!

  3. cherylrwalker

    Thank you and thanks to Michael!  Worked like a gem.

    • stratosjl

       @cherylrwalker You’re welcome, glad it worked for you!

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