# Installing Canon PIXMA MX870 Printer on Gentoo...

## Proksima

I do not know why, but installing this printer on Gentoo is awefully hard... On other distros, you may find quite easily the .deb or .rpm package. However, on Gentoo, the way to install is a little more complicated...

You may find everything you need (at least it is what they claim) to install MX870 on linux here:

http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010837.asp

To install my printer I began by untar the rpm packages:

```
rpm -Uvh --nodeps cnij*common*
```

```
rpm -Uvh --nodeps cnij*mx870*
```

Then, I configured CUPS which allowed me to select the right printer and driver for it. However, when I tried to print I noticed (CUPS told me) that the pstocanonij was missing.

I compiled it from the source provided, copy it to the:

```
/usr/libexec/cups/filter/
```

directory as requested (it has been installed in /usr/local/lib/cups/filter/pstocanonij).

Now I do not get any error message, CUPS tells me that every job I sent are sucessfully done, but my printer just does not print.

Any suggestions? Or maybe a complete guide to install it? Or anything? Because this topic is awefully undocumented.

Thanks in advance,

Proksima

----------

## cwr

I installed an MP630 a while back without too many problems - since I  had

a Ubuntu system running I did parts of the install on that, and copied files

over, but you could probably just unpack the debs and install stuff by hand.

My installation notes are as follows:

Emerged cnijfilter with the mp630 flag on Gentoo (the cnijtools flag needs

the obsolete libxml library), but the printer didn't respond.

Installed Canon MP630 drivers from .deb files on Ubuntu, and then copied the

/usr/share/ppd directory, the /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and printers.conf, and the

/etc/cups/ppd/MP630-series.ppd files across to Gentoo (some of these files

appear to be binary drivers).  Printing from Gentoo then worked.

Note that USB printers have to be attached and powered up before the system

is booted, at least for the install.

There are two extra directories in Ubuntu, /usr/share/cngpijmonmp630 and

/usr/share/ printuimp630; they seem to be part of cnijtools, but were copied

across anyway.

The "Canon PIXMA Linux Blog" site might be helpful.

Will

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## Proksima

Thanks for the reply!

The only problem is that the MX870 is completely undocumented (for the non-rpm non-deb case at least) even the blog does not talk about it... I'm kind of depressed and Turboprint would be too expansive for my need...

I will continue trying to set it up, if I succeed I'll post the solution here...

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## zerocool_australia

Ah.. I just bought one of these last week. Great printer. Got it because network scanning & printing is FULLY supported in linux.

There is a MUCH better route than the RPM's that is already in the portage tree.

Gutenprint provides all the required PPD's for cups for a whole stack of extra printers.

You need:

net-print/gutenprint-5.2.7 or newer (For printing.. I turned on all the use flags - 5.2.7 is not in the tree yet. Copy the 5.2.6 ebuild to 5.2.7 and then build the digest)

```
 cd /usr/portage/net-print/gutenprint/; cp gutenprint-5.2.6.ebuild gutenprint-5.2.7.ebuild ; ebuild gutenprint-5.2.7.ebuild digest
```

net-print/cups-1.4 or newer (For printing..I use 1.4... I am not sure if the old "stable" versions would work)

media-gfx/sane-backends-1.0.22 or newer (If you want to scan, turn on the SANE_BACKENDS=pixma in make.conf)

media-gfx/xsane (If you want to scan)

net-print/cups-bjnp (ONLY if you want to use this printer/scanner over the **network** instead of USB) - Get the ebuild here - http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=dev/dev-zero.git;a=tree;f=net-print/cups-bjnp

For the printing, as soon as you install the above packages and restart CUPS, CUPS will detect a new printer. You will then be able to pick Canon then MX870 from the list and it will just work.

For the scanning, install the packages and start SANE. It will auto-detect your MX870.

let me know if you have more questions..

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## Proksima

Thank you very much for your suggestion! =D

I don't have the time to check it right now, but I will asap and tell you if it works!

Thanks again!

Proksima

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## wrc1944

zerocool_australia,

After much struggling around, and failures, I stumbled upon a page for the newest gutenprint-5.2.7 which listed my printer, and then searching the Gentoo forum I saw your post, so I tried your method on my new Pixma MP495, and it worked for printing.Thanks much for confirming what I was gradually figuring out!   :Very Happy:  Saved me some time.   :Cool: 

However, for scanning it didn't work.  Tried everything I could think of- editing in my MP495 ID/Product numbers in saned.d and udev rules, various sane and pixma config files, and SANE_BACKENDS="pixma" in make.conf (you didn't have the quotes on pixma- is that correct?).

Also did revdep-rebuilds and many re-merges, but could never detect the scanner.

On Linux Mint 11, I did the method with the ubuntu .deb files on both printer and scanner, and that worked fine. Just extracted the debs in /home/wrc/ and then ran the ./install.sh file from the created deb directories- worked first time, with no problems.

http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010885.asp

PIXMA MP495 series Linux Printer Driver (3.4.0)

PIXMA MP495 series Linux Scanner Drive (1.6.0)

Actually, I used this one on Mint: http://support-au.canon.com.au/contents/AU/EN/0100302801.html

Which is:

MP495 series ScanGear MP Ver. 1.60 for Linux (debian Packagearchive)

Last Updated : 03-Sep-2010

Issue Number : 0100302801

Canon also has the regular source files available, here:  

http://software.canon-europe.com/software/0040245.asp?model=   (printer)

http://software.canon-europe.com/software/0040247.asp?model=    (scanner)

I guess we could install them manually outside of portage, but mightn't the best solution for Gentoo users be for some kind and competent Gentoo user to make ebuilds for these two packages?  That would be great- I'd try it myself except I don't have much confidence in my ability to do so.   :Sad: 

3.4.0 covers these printers, so it would be [pretty useful for a lot of Canon Pixma users:

Supported product(s)

  PIXMA iP4840

  PIXMA iP4850

  PIXMA MG5140

  PIXMA MG5150

  PIXMA MG5240

  PIXMA MG5250

  PIXMA MG6140

  PIXMA MG6150

  PIXMA MG8140

  PIXMA MG8150

  PIXMA MP250

  PIXMA MP280

  PIXMA MP282

  PIXMA MP495

  PIXMA MP499

Don't get me wrong- the gutenprint-5.2.7 method worked fine, but maybe the actual Canon Linux drivers are better with more features/options? gutenprint-5.2.7 seemed pretty sparse (or maybe I was just missing how to use some of the options).

----------

## wrc1944

More investigation led me to this- looks very promising. https://bugs.gentoo.org/130645?id=130645

Towards the end the versions are getting up-to-date, and I guess there are ebuilds for this stuff after all.

Is there a dedicated forum thread for only Canon pixmas?

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## Proksima

 *wrc1944 wrote:*   

> zerocool_australia,
> 
> However, for scanning it didn't work.  Tried everything I could think of- editing in my MP495 ID/Product numbers in saned.d and udev rules, various sane and pixma config files, and SANE_BACKENDS="pixma" in make.conf (you didn't have the quotes on pixma- is that correct?).
> 
> 

 

Yeah, I was quite satisfied to be able to print, so I didn't post back. But scanning didn't worked for me either.

However, I use only printing most of the time, unless I want to help someone and scan my notes or something...

Well, eventually I'll post something back if I cannot figure out what's wrong... Maybe after gutenprint 5.2.7 become an official package in portage?

----------

## wrc1944

Proksima,

I just got my scanner to work on a pixma MP495 by creating a local /usr/local/portage/net-print/scangearmp overlay.   :Very Happy: 

I used the scangearmp-1.60.ebuild posted by JohnBlbec on P.14 here:  https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-448354-start-325.html

Just a quick cd /usr/local/portage/net-print/scangearmp and ebuild scangear-1.60.ebuild manifest and I could emerge scangear-1.60 and it pulled in 3 other deps with no problems.

In your case with the MX870 you'll probably need another scangearmp version- check the canon site out for which one you need.  Not sure if there is an ebuild on that bugzilla site for MX870, or not.

EDIT:  Maybe this is what you need, but not sure where an ebuild would be.  http://software.canon-europe.com/software/0038683.asp?model=  It seems a bit different (printer and scanner in one package).   Maybe extracting it in /home/user and installing it manually outside of portage would work, if there are no ebuilds anywhere that can't be adapted.

He also posted a cnijfilter-3.40.ebuild, which I haven't tried yet as printing is working with gutenprint OK.  I have other Gentoo installs I'll try that on instead of gutenprint.

Even though scangearmp is meant to be run from a terminal as user and then a nice GUI pops up, I made me a menu entry  with a nice little scanner icon in kde-4.7.0, and the little scangearmp dialog where you select your scanner pops up directly from that without a need for launching from a terminal.

----------

## wrc1944

Proksima wrote: *Quote:*   

> Maybe after gutenprint 5.2.7 become an official package in portage?

 

FWIW,  gutenprint-5.2.7 is now in ~x86

Changelog:  *Quote:*   

> *gutenprint-5.2.7 (05 Sep 2011)
> 
>   05 Sep 2011; Tim Harder <radhermit@gentoo.org> +gutenprint-5.2.7.ebuild:
> 
>   Version bump (bug #377895 by Raphaël Droz). Add nls and static-libs USE
> ...

 

Also see this:  https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=377895

----------

## Proksima

 *wrc1944 wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Also see this:  https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=377895

 

And now my scanner works! And I didn't do anything!

That's the magic of the developers behind Gentoo! =D

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