[CentOS] The scariest set up of all: Printer Support

Dave Gutteridge

dave at tokyocomedy.com
Fri Aug 19 05:08:40 UTC 2005


My experience with printers is that of all the peripherals, regardless 
of OS, they are the trickiest to install, configure, and use. So I'm 
expecting a battle here.

What I have is a Canon Pixus iP3100. It's a Japanese model, but it's the 
same model as the US Canon Pixma iP3000, just a different name.

First, I plugged in the USB cable. CentOS seemed to detect it, and gave 
me a list of options. Neither the US model number nor Japanese model 
number was there, so I selected "Canon (unknown)". It spent a while 
installing, and then finished without any message to say for sure if it 
had installed successfully. I tried to print from a number of 
application, but nothing happened. Just nothing. No error messages, no 
printer noises, nothing.

So, I figured the driver didn't take hold.

I looked around the net, and first I cam across "Turboprint for Linux". 
At first it seemed promising. But my first snag was that after 
installing the RPM, I didn't seem to have any printer configuration 
dialogues or anything. I went on the net to see about a manual, and 
*then* I discovered that in the free, consumer use version, they stamp a 
logo onto whatever you print. I was a little annoyed that they didn't 
make that really clear up front, they just tell you that commercial 
users must pay and consumers can use for free.

Anyway, I decided to look for different alternatives. I came across a 
web site that said that my printer model could work under a different 
Canon driver:
http://www.linuxprinting.org/pipermail/canon-list/2004q4/001797.html

But, and here's the heart of my question, I can't find any place to make 
changes to my printer configuration. According to some web sites I 
looked at, I should have a printer configuration application in my menu, 
under "Preferences". But all I have is a "printer settings" application 
which, despite the promising name, doesn't have any menu options at all 
for configuring the printer or it's drivers. It looks more like a print 
spool manager for when you have print jobs lined up.

Where/how do I configure my printer and try alternate drivers?

Dave



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