Canon MP620 [Solved]

[ratcheer]

I have made two major accomplishments on my Sabayon 8 system, this morning. I finally got fglrx ATI proprietary driver installed, and I got my rt3562sta wireless driver compiled, configured, and connected.

My last hurdle to getting my Sabayon system to where I can use it as my everyday "main" system is getting my Canon Pixma MP620 printer working. I have searched and searched: the Sabayon Wiki, the Gentoo Wiki, the Sabayon packages, and the entire Internet (Google and Duck Duck Go). I can find neither binary drivers nor instructions for compiling my own on Sabayon or Gentoo. I even joined cups.org and searched their database, but nothing was to be found.

I will say it was not easy to install this printer on Ubuntu, either, but I was finally successful. It was even more difficult on Arch, but I found it in their AUR user repository.

I am a newbie, but I have searched everything I can think of. Can anyone advide me on how this printer can be installed on Sabayon?

Thank you,
Tim

PS - The printer is only three years old, and it is a good printer.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Apparently the Gutenprint package includes a driver for the Canon MP620, so install the package net-print/gutenprint and try adding the printer using the CUPS Manager (enter the URL http://localhost:631/ in your browser's address bar). It goes without saying that you will need to have installed the CUPS package first, but also make sure the CUPS daemon is added to the default runlevel:

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# rc-update add cupsd default
# /etc/init.d/cupsd restart

If that does not work, there is a Portage ebuild for the MP620 in a third-party Gentoo overlay named 'papy-tools' (there may well be other ebuilds for the MP620 in other third-party overlays too). I have no need to install it myself, but you can have a go by using the commands I list below. I'm not sure if the ebuild in the papy-tools overlay takes into account changes introduced in CUPS 1.5.x and libpng 1.5.x (I won't go into details, but there were some significant changes to the way those two packages work), but see what happens.

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$ su
Password:
# equo install git # The SL overlays use Git.
# emerge --sync # Syncronise your PC with the ebuilds in the main Portage tree.
# layman -S # Get a list of all the overlays.
# layman -d sabayon # Delete the sabayon overlay in case you have the old monolithic overlay added.
# layman -d sabayon-distro # Delete the 2nd new SL overlay if it happens to have been added.
# layman -a sabayon # Add the 1st new split Sabayon overlay.
# layman -a sabayon-distro # Add the 2nd new split Sabayon overlay.
# layman -S # Belt and braces.
# layman -L -o http://www.papylhomme.org/gentoo/portage-overlay.xml # Add info on the papy-tools overlay to Layman's cache.
# layman -a papy-tools -o http://www.papylhomme.org/gentoo/portage-overlay.xml # Add the overlay.
# emerge -1v cnijfilter-common cnijfilter-mp620 # Merge (install) these two packages from the papy-tools Portage overlay.
# equo rescue spmsync # Tell Entropy what you did in Portage.
# exit
exit
$

Then launch the CUPS Manager by entering the URL http://localhost:631/ in your browser's address bar, and add the printer. (I assume you have already installed CUPS and added it to the default runlevel? If not, you need to do those first.)

As an aside, I have two Canon printers (PIXMA MP510 and PIXMA MP560) and the print quality is excellent. Coincidentally, I re-installed the drivers for both of them in a local overlay in a fresh Gentoo installation this afternoon. I used a couple of ebuilds which I downloaded from the Gentoo Bugzilla (I had to hack one of the ebuilds so that both drivers could co-exist in the same installation). There are quite a few ebuilds in the Gentoo Bugzilla for different models of Canon printer. More and more Canon printer drivers are being incorporated into the Gutenprint package, so it is becoming easier to install Canon drivers in Gentoo/Sabayon Linux these days.

[ratcheer]

Excellent info. Thank you for your help. I am off to try your suggestions...

But, I do wonder why none of my searches turned up any of that info. ???

Tim

[ratcheer]

The Gutenprint driver seemed to install without a hitch, but I still cannot actually print. The CUPS job status says, "Network host '192.168.1.123' is busy; will retry in 30 seconds..."

However, I will admit that I have no idea which connection protocol to choose. I chose ipp, but there are several other possibilities (ipps, http, https, ...). I am also allowed to specify a port, but I did not. On Ubuntu, the printer is installed with a driver from Canon which instructs to use protocol bjnp, which is not offered by the Gutenprint driver, and port 8611. I.e., bjnp://192.168.1.123:8611

As this installation was so slick, I would appreciate any further advice on configuring the Gutenprint driver before I try to dig into the portage thing. Thanks.

Tim

[Fitzcarraldo]

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$ eix bjnp
* net-print/cups-bjnp
     Available versions:  ~*0.5.4[1] ~*1.0
     Homepage:            http://sourceforge.net/projects/cups-bjnp/
     Description:         CUPS backend for the canon printers using the proprietary USB over IP BJNP protocol.

[1] "papy-tools" /var/lib/layman/papy-tools

Seems the papy-tools overlay also has a bjnp ebuild, so try installing that:

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# echo "net-print/cups-bjnp **" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
# emerge -1v cups-bjnp
# equo rescue spmsync # Tell Entropy what you did via Portage.

[ratcheer]

Oops. Everything was going great until I tried to add the papy-tools overlay:

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# layman -a papy-tools -o http://www.papylhomme.org/gentoo/portage-overlay.xml

 * Adding overlay,...
 * Adding repository "papy-tools" failed!

 * CLI: Errors occured processing action add
 * Adding repository "papy-tools" failed!

Tim

[Fitzcarraldo]

Looks like you don't have dev-vcs/subversion installed. The papy-tools repository uses Subversion (the Sabayon overlays use Git). Install Subversion and try again:

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equo install dev-vcs/subversion

EDIT: Actually, before you do that, I didn't notice in the eix output I posted earlier that there is also an ebuild for cups-bjnp (version 1.0, as opposed to version 0.5.4 in the papy-tools overlay) in the main Portage tree, with which you have already synchronised. So, actually, you could first do the following and try again with the Gutenprint driver:

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emerge -1v cups-bjnp

[ratcheer]

I loaded the cups-bjnp and it failed. Then, I restarted cupsd and tried again, but it gave the same failure: Bad device-uri scheme "bjnp".

I am going to go look at it in Ubuntu and see if I can tell how the printer was added. Because, in Ubuntu, it is definitely using CUPS with that address.

LATER - No, I am continuing with the portage installation. The bjnp protocol works with the real Canon driver that we are installing with portage, not the Gutenprint driver. I think it is some kind of proprietary protocol.

Tim

[ratcheer]

Next error:

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# emerge -1v cnijfilter-common cnijfilter-mp620

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild  N    *] net-print/cnijfilter-common-3.0.0::papy-tools  6,062 kB
[ebuild  N     ] app-arch/rpm2targz-9.0.0.4g  5 kB
[ebuild  N    *] net-print/cnijfilter-mp620-2.8.0::papy-tools  1,572 kB

Total: 3 packages (3 new), Size of downloads: 7,639 kB

The following keyword changes are necessary to proceed:
#required by cnijfilter-mp620 (argument)
=net-print/cnijfilter-mp620-2.8.0 **
#required by net-print/cnijfilter-mp620-2.8.0, required by cnijfilter-mp620 (argument)
=net-print/cnijfilter-common-3.0.0 **

NOTE: The --autounmask-keep-masks option will prevent emerge
      from creating package.unmask or ** keyword changes.

Use --autounmask-write to write changes to config files (honoring CONFIG_PROTECT).

I tried a few changes to the command, but nothing worked. This is my first time using emerge.

Tim

[Fitzcarraldo]

No sweat. Just add the two lines in the error message to the file /etc/portage/package.keywords by using the following commands:

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echo "=net-print/cnijfilter-mp620-2.8.0 **" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
echo "=net-print/cnijfilter-common-3.0.0 **" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords

Then re-run the emerge command.