I am trying to find drivers for my Canon PIXMA MP160 printer-scanner. I'm using Fedora Core 5 on this PC. I've searched Google and diferent forums includining this one and I can't seem to come up with any support. Also ng with Canon support. Anyone tackle this problem?

Support for Canon printers/scanners is spotty at best. I am assuming from your post this is an all-in-one. The scanner may be supported with SANE, there has been some recent support for Canon scanners with the SANE project. I have a Canon MP500 AIO, there are no drivers for it that I could find, however, the scanner works 100% with SANE. The print drivers for my MP500 (and your MP160) are available from Turboprint for about $40 US. Best forty bucks I spent. Between the Turboprint drivers and the scanner support in SANE my MP500 works as well in Linux as it did in windows, including printing photos (which I do alot of). If you don't mind spending a few bucks you can solve your printer problems and support a great project, IMO. There is a free version of their drivers so you can test it out first, just anything you print that is better than draft quality will have a turboprint logo on it. Best Regards.

Thanks TuxSurfer for this excellent reply. I will have a look at these options. Yes it's an "All-In-One".

Like an absolute idiot I went ahead and purchased a printer as an impulse buy without checking for support.

Of course I managed to choose a printer/scanner, the Canon PixmaMP160, that has almost no support in Linux.

Rather than go through the hassle of trying to return the thing (with the cartridges already installed, etc) I freaked out and reinstalled Ubuntu, remembering it has better hardware support (I'd been running ZenWalk) - AGAIN without checking my online resources! Of course it still didn't work, until after (finally) frantically searching the web for a solution I found your post about TurboPrint. THANK YOU! IT NOW WORKS! (yes, I'm a dumbass).

kate

I think Turboprint is a great resource and deserves support. I don't like the idea of paying for drivers particularly after I just shelled out a couple of bills for a printer, but until the manufacturers get there act together and realize there is life beyond Windows then folks like Turboprint are a great help. The price is low in my opinion and the quality of their drivers is about as good as the OEM. Glad that helped, best regards.

TuxSurfer

I agree with you TuxSurfer on shelling out for drivers after buying a new printer. Especially when the drivers cost more than the printer itself. These MP160's are good machines but are pretty inexpensive. I also found it hard to believe that none of the supported Canon drivers worked with this machine. I haven't purchased TurboPrint but I did give it a try and it worked perfect. I guess I'm too cheap and I'm holding out for better support. Meanwhile I just use Windows for my printing needs on that computer.

Kate, I'm glad to here you're up and running. I also took the MP160 for granted that it was supported. Enjoy Ubuntu, I do

Bob

I am also having trouble with MP160 with printing under OpenSuse 10.3. Does anybody knows which printing protocol is used by MP160 so I can try a generic configuration?

jordan&&&&, I can't help you with the protocol, I basically gave up on the MP160 and installed an HP PSC all in one effortlessly. It just didn't seem worth the time I put into it to get it to work when others are supported. I would consider TurboPrint if you plan on keeping this printer in Linux.

Bob

I found some drivers and a guide at the Australian canon site, and it works. I had to just change printer URI in one of the commands in the guide.

http://www.canon.com.au/products/all...0_support.aspx

Hello fellow Linux users.

I have spent days entering different commands in the terminal trying to install the rpm files from Australia.

They have not worked on the MP 160.

What does work is the built in MP 150 driver supplied with Ubuntu 7.10. It is limited and does not let you clean the heads or change the resolution. The head cleaning is a big issue because I always refill my cartridges.

So my question is: Can someone show the exact commands I have to enter to convert and install the rpm files from Australia? This is for Ubuntu version 7.10. Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Neil in Edmonton, Alberta

Well, I have installed the printer at least 3 times (but unfortunately not the scanner)

1) Install the rpms from canon site.
2) Use the utility - Manage Printers. It is included in both Fedora and OpenSuse. That will essentially save you writing commands (at this point at least).
3 optional) After finishing that you might get a message in the same utility that pstocanonij can't be found or something similar. At this point I edit the ppd file of the printer. There are 2 of them and i edit both, one in /etc/cups/ppd/<canonmp160.ppd> and another one in /usr/share/cups/model. Open them in text editor as root and find the line cupsFilter. There is an entry pstocanonij. Replace it with its complete path : /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstocanonij.

openSUSE 11 on x86_64

MP160 not working with Yast installer.

TurboPrint as recommended above worked out of the box.

Spend the $40; I would have spent $400 worth of time trying to manually configure this.

skibum

I kind of agree. Canon made it geeky to install the driver and perhaps the alternative way using almost entirely GUI is still geeky enough.

$40 are not much, but when you buy a printer you are actually paying for the hardware and windows drivers and why should you pay extra for linux support. That 40 dollars are more than a third of the printer cost. I think that the only good advise here could be:

if you still haven't bought MP 160 go for another brand with linux support. As you see from this topic you will might have $40 hidden cost and even it can get more because you have to waste time configuring scanning or buy driver from someone else (if available at all).