I am a newboy at this linux game and need some help with getting my Canon S4500 printer to be recognised by Mandake 10.1.
I can run hardware module and the printer is detected on a USB port.
When I run configure it seems to ask all the right questions but gets to the end and says "can't configure printer " and that really annoying "OK" button - no its not OK !!!!!
This is a dual boot sustem with XP pro - everything works OK - and Mandrake 10.1 with linux kernel 2.6.8.1
I would really like to change to linux but with this, and other problems which will be the subject of another post, I will have to stick with Bill's OS - shame on me !
What do I do now; any help please !

Have you installed Gimp-Print? It should be available in the list of things you can install with the Mandrake Control Centre. linuxprinting.org says it only works marginally but it may be better than nothing

OK. looked for gimp-print on my system and on DVD with mandrake and not there. Went to linuxprinting.org and downloaded the gimp-print 4.2.7 driver and now have a file on my drive which is a tar.gz file, which I understand is a compressed file. Try to open it with Ark and it says it is not a file ?
I don't understand

Did you check for an RPM? I try to stay away from TARballs, but sometimes you just can't. Don't open it with Ark.
-(I'm assuming you're running KDE), if so, just go to the file where you downloaded it to, and double-click on it. It'll do a WinXP type thing where it allows you to scan through the files in the archive.
-Just highlight all the files, copy, and paste them into their own folder.
-Next, since it's a tarball, there SHOULD be a text file called "INSTALL", or something along those lines.
-Read that file, and it should walk you through what you need to do to install it.

Did I check for an RPM ? I have no idea what an RPM is and as I cant get my Linux system to connect to the internet I cannot use urpmi - I think.

OK, so I double clicked on the file gimp-print-tar and it said that the folder contained no files.
According to Linuxprinting.org the size of the file should be in the 5Mb range, mine is 14Kb. I seem not to be able to download the file from the site using Win XP, can this be true, it is just a file after all.

Please remember I am highly ignorant of Linux and mandrake - be gentle with me, I just want a system that works.

Hah, oh don't worry. I won't fill your head with useless jargon. I'm an old Windows to Linux defector myself.

RPM pretty much stands for RedHat Package Manager. A *.RPM file is the equivalent to a Windows *.MSI package.
If you want to install something on RedHat or Mandrake, chances are you should get a download of what you're looking for, with a .RPM extension.

If you say the file's only checking out to be 14KB, then something went wrong. Go back into WinXP, and re-download it. (Better yet, try and find the RPM while you're at it =D )

Hello again, thanks for the no jargon reply.

I have tried several times to download the *tar.gz file and get the same result. In other words its only downloading the web page and not the program.

But I can download the .dmg version of the gimp-print file from the same webpage - http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...ease_id=253439

what do I do with this .dmg file ?

As an aside I do have the Gimp package installed, shouldn't gimp-print be part of this ? If so shouldn't my printer therefore work ?

OK. I'll give you the quick 5 sec description of thes file names...

gimp-print-4.2.7-0.ppc.dmg
gimp-print-4.2.7.tar.gz

Gimp-print: name
4.2.7: version
-0: compile number (pretty sure)
ppc: power PC (the proc in a apple, amungst others)
.dmg: apple format (Disk iMaGe, I think)
tar: early progam that collected files together into one big one (for transport) (Tape ARchive)
gz: gzip, simmilar to zip (same author I believe) compressor
now-a-days tar+gz/gz2 are done at the same time, with the same program

others you will see:
x86: 32bit intel/compatable
source: source code, has to be compiled befor install
noarch: no arcitect specified. either source (sometimes), in a language that doesn't get compiled (like perl, bash scripts...) or it's data, not an app
amd_64, 64_x86, ect: 64 bit intel/compatable
mdk: mandrake.

etc... Most of the rest are easy to guess

So, in this case, get the source package, but try for a different mirror or something. Something's wrong in the file xfer at some stage...

Firstly let me say a big thanks to you people for taking your time to answer my feeble queries.

I have solved the problem of the tar file and now have the full size copy - it was my download manager screwing up.

I will look at the installation jargon and take it from there.

I have also found a gimp print rpm but at only 60 Kb I guess there must be a whole load of other files I need to have as well - dependancies I think you would call them.

I think the best thing to do is try and get my modem to work under Mandrake and then use urmpi to get the packages.

Once again thanks for all you help, I have learned a lot - as a mechanical engineer I always thought that rpm was revs per minute - away to go !

Look out for the thread about a sagem ADSL modem not working !

Bye for now.