Canon ip1800

Introduction

This is a brief guide for installing the Canon iP1800, based on the wiki for installing the Canon iP4300 printer.

Requirements

The following packages will very likely be needed:

• cups
• ghostscript
• gsfonts
• gutenprint

Install with:

# pacman -S cups ghostscript gsfonts gutenprint

Now create a directory somewhere (for the sake of this tutorial let this directory be ~/canon) and cd to it.

Download drivers

Canon Australia provides the drivers in .rpm format, rpmextract will be needed later. Download drivers to ~/canon directory.

• cnijfilter-ip1800series http://support-au.canon.com.au/contents/AU/EN/0900718601.html
• cnijfilter-common http://support-au.canon.com.au/contents/AU/EN/0900718405.html

Install rpmextract

You will need this package to extract the content of the drivers

# pacman -S rpmextract

Extract drivers

# rpmextract.sh cnijfilter-ip1800series-2.70-1.i386.rpm
# rmpextract.sh cnijfilter-common-2.70-1.i386.rpm

Move the files

The command rpmextract.sh should have created a usr/ directory in the folder with the rpms. Copy every file in this directory's subfolders into the corresponding actual location. e.g. copy the files in ~/canon/usr/lib/ to /usr/lib/ Do this for all files in all subdirectories, and remember, this has to be done with root privileges.

Install the printer with CUPS

CUPS now uses libusb instead of usblp. To read more on this, see the Arch Wiki page for CUPS#Blacklisting usblp. Unload the module if it is currently loaded:

# rmmod usblp

Disable it permanently by adding it in /etc/rc.conf:

MODULES=(... !usblp ...)

If cups was already running, restart it with

# /etc/rc.d/cupsd restart

If cups is not already running, start it with

# /etc/rc.d/cupsd start

Make the cups daemon start on boot by adding it to the daemons list in /etc/rc.conf:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng dbus ... @cupsd)

Now point your browser of choice at http://localhost:631 This should present the cups web interface. If not, ensure that cups is started (see above) and that your hosts are set-up correctly (or see the CUPS article).

• Click Add Printer
• Fill in the Name, Description and Location (not really very important)
• Choose the connection method for your printer, and fill in any details required for this.
• Now you will be prompted for a Make/Manufacturer - choose Provide a ppd file (click browse)
• Navigate to /usr/share/cups/model/ and choose canonip1800.ppd

Creating links for libs

The driver needs a few additional libraries for which you have to create links. You can find the missing libraries by running the executable files in /usr/local/bin/ that you have copied earlier. To verify which libraries need linking, run the following command:

# ldd /usr/local/bin/cifip1800

You'll probably have to link

# ln -s /usr/lib/libcnbpcmcm312.so.6.50.1 /usr/lib/libcnbpcmcm312.so
# ln -s /usr/lib/libcnbpess312.so.3.0.9 /usr/lib/libcnbpess312.so
# ln -s /usr/lib/libpng.so /usr/lib/libpng.so.3
# ln -s /usr/lib/libcnbpcnclapi312.so.3.3.0 /usr/lib/libcnbpcnclapi312.so
# ln -s /usr/lib/libcnbpcnclbjcmd312.so.3.3.0 /usr/lib/libcnbpcnclbjcmd312.so
# ln -s /usr/lib/libcnbpcnclui312.so.3.3.0 /usr/lib/libcnbpcnclui312.so

Installing from AUR

The second (and better) way to install drivers is from the AUR.

• cnijfilter-full270^AUR compiles drivers from sources (well, there are still some blobs in the archive). It's available for both i686 and x86_64 (crosscompiling to i686). There are some issues with monitoring and ui utilities, they may not work, but at least printing itself works.