I can not connect to the link in the post for i550 for canon japan. But I can print using Canon MF4100 series all in one printer connected to windows machine. But yes, Canon has limited support for linux drivers compared to HP.

For kubuntu - use the rpms through alien.
This is the despirate option and I note that the thread starter got a printed page with free drivers whereas OP here did not.

I also see that the drivers are linked against an older libpng - it may be possible, as the thread has it, to use a symlink to basically spoof having the older libs - but we are up to libpng12-0 (thread says libpng2) and there may be substantial changes. Add to this that OP reports not having libpng or libtiff ... so the approach will certainly fail until this is corrected.