Hi,

I am unable to get my Puppy 4.1 to print anything at all - and have searched the Puppy sites without much success. Where I thought there was a solution - the processes described were way too complex for me. Best I could find was the possible use of printer drivers available as deb files.

I have a Canon Pixma i4500 printer that I have managed to make work acceptably in Ubuntu Hardy using the following deb files:

1) cnijfilter-common_2.80-1_i386.deb
2) cnijfilter-ip4500series_2.80-1_i386.deb

I have also managed to get acceptable printing from my Fedora 9 using the rpm versions of the above files.

I would appreciate any help on how I can convert these files into something that can be used as printer drivers for Puppy 4.1 in CUPS.

Thanks

murthy

Did you try the source file?

http://support-asia.canon-asia.com/E...os%3d%3dLinux&

You can unpack those files and decide for yourself what to do with all the files.

For example:

cd
mkdir printer_files
cd printer_files
mkdir common
cd common
ar x /path/to/cnijfilter-common_2.80-1_i386.deb

That should produce the files:
debian-binary
control.tar.gz
data.tar.gz

tar xvf control.tar.gz
Should produce:
md5sums
postinst
preinst
prerm
postrm
conffiles
control

The 'preinst' and 'postinst' are scripts which do some setup operations before and after installing

If you unpack data.tar.gz you should get a directory heirarchy containing the executables, libraries, man pages, and so on. You can rummage through that to get an idea of what files are there and what you should do with them.

One important thing if you have executables is to check all dependencies and make sure they will be met; otherwise you will be wasting your time doing all this unpacking and copying.

Thanks. I had previously obtained the deb / rpm / source files from the same site you referred. I used the deb files for Ubuntu and the rpm files for Fedora.

I am clueless as to what to do with the source file. I am afraid I have no programming knowledge - and unless I have specific instructions on what to do, I will be lost.

This is asking too much, I know - unless someone has already done something like this before and has references handy.

murthy

Guessing a little here (as in I am not going to try it out).

Download the source (looks like you can skip that). Lets say they are in /usr/src

go to the source (cd /usr/src)
unpack the tarball (tar xvf cnijfilter-common-2.80-1.tar.gz)
cd cnijfilter-common-2.80
faff around for a while wondering why there are no documents to read. Finally decide to look in ./ppd (cups uses ppd's as definition files)
Read INSTALL
follow the instructions (here I'm just replicating what they say)
./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --program-suffix=ip4500
sudo make install

I'm now assuming you should be able to install the printer using CUPS, and tell cups to use the newly generated ppd file (I guess it's in /usr somewhere - try "find / -type f -name '*.ppd')

pinniped, did you mean open out the deb file (cnijfilter-common_2.80-1_i386.deb)?

I opened up the source file (cnijfilter-common-2.80-1.tar.gz.gz) and found lots and lots of folders / files. I know I will get hopelessly lost if I try working on these!!

Will try and to check out what is installed under my Ubuntu printer files if possible - and maybe I can try and learn something.

Slightly simplified version then

go to the source (cd /usr/src)
unpack the tarball
go to the ppd directory
Build it
find the ppd
I assume it's called cnijfilter.ppd or sililar

Fire up CUPS and when selecting the printer type, use the option to specify the ppd (see location in previous step)

Thanks for all the help. But right now I have a different problem I think - my printer not is being detected at all. All my other usb devices seem to be detected (inc a scanner which is not Linux compliant)- but the printer doesn't show up at all - despite switching usb ports around.

Fedora/Ubuntu at least used to print out blank sheets of paper until I got the correct drivers installed!!

Going thru process of uninstalling CUPS and re-installing and checking for connectivity before I attempt what has been suggested.

murthy

Before you waste more time fiddling with CUPS etc. - does 'lsusb' list your printer? If not check cables and the printer on a different machine.

Didn't have 'lsusb' - but installed 'usbview' , and that's when I realized my printer was not listed. However, my printer works fine with the other OS - Ubuntu/Fedora/XP

But after I uninstalled / reinstalled CUPS etc, re-booted - I now have major problems - I seem to have lost everything I had. Desktop, some programs etc. But now I can see the printer in usbview!!

Looks like I have to re-install puppy from the original Live CD and start all over. Yuks!!

murthy

Update - have reinstalled Puppy, and usb printer detected and able to print blank sheets!

Unpacked the tarball cnijfilter-common-2.80-1.tar.gz.gz, and have a ppd for the iP4500. Unfortunately couldn't build it with:

"./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --program-suffix=ip4500 sudo make install" as suggested.

Error says I don't have 'autoconf' and 'automake' and get from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub. But there are lots of 'automake' and 'autoconf' files there - not certain which is the right one or if any will do.

Downloaded and installed Cups 1.3.3 - and this seemed to have the option to specify a ppd file. But there is a lot wrong with the new Cups - cannot print test page etc, and no ouputs. So back to square 1.

Will give this a little bit of rest for the moment!!

murthy

yum install automake

should install it for you.

(you may need to install autoconf too)

Will try, but have a bit more work to do. What I thought was the iP4500 ppd from the tarball extract appears to be a pretty small file (14KB) and viewing as text it suggests its an add-on.

The Canon.ppd file that is provided in Puppy is an 85KB file. This ppd driver seems to be effective whatever Canon model printer is chosen selected in Cups. I checked my Ubuntu files, and the iP4500 file is a full 87KB - this is closer to the 85KB Canon.ppd file in Puppy.

I opened up the deb files as suggested by pinniped - and he was right. There is a whole bunch of files in data.tar.gz. I can only assume that apt-get builds the iP4500.ppd in some fashion from the deb files, and distributes the others to the right places in the system.

All this is way over my head - a good point to give up!!

Thanks for all the help!!

murthy

Will try, but have a bit more work to do. What I thought was the iP4500 ppd from the tarball extract appears to be a pretty small file (14KB) and viewing as text it suggests its an add-on.

The Canon.ppd file that is provided in Puppy is an 85KB file. This ppd driver seems to be effective whatever Canon model printer is chosen selected in Cups. I checked my Ubuntu files, and the iP4500 file is a full 87KB - this is closer to the 85KB Canon.ppd file in Puppy.

I opened up the deb files as suggested by pinniped - and he was right. There is a whole bunch of files in data.tar.gz. I can only assume that apt-get builds the iP4500.ppd in some fashion from the deb files, and distributes the others to the right places in the system.

All this is way over my head - a good point to give up!!

Thanks for all the help!!

murthy

I thought I would give it one more go!!

Took the two deb files I used in Ubuntu (mentioned in my first post) extracted the directories, and generally followed procedures in

http://puppylinux.com/development/createpet.htm

and created two pet files that I installed using PET Package Manager, and saw that the driver was actually listed in the selections available.

Unfortunately I must have messed up something somewhere, and I couldn't actually install and give an 'client-error' code. For that matter I couldn't actually install even the previous drivers available, with the same error code.

No paw prints on my printer yet!! Bad dog!!

murthy