Ubuntu – How to solve Canon Pixma G2000 driver problems on Ubuntu 16.04

16.04canonprinting

I just bought this new printer Canon PIXMA G2000, and I can't find any driver for my Ubuntu. I research this printer and this is the first canon printer with ink-tank.

How long it will take usually for canon to release an official driver for linux?

I try using the printers app and on dash home, and search for printer driver to download. But, no matches found.

Is there any universal driver for canon printer on 16.04?

Best Answer

The options for a person trying to install Canon's G1000 and G2000 are limited to the following:

  1. Compile and install gutenprint. Gutenprint, formerly named Gimp-Print, is a suite of printer drivers for linux. It works just like native drivers and supports cups based printing.

  2. Buy a third party linux printing driver and utility, called Turboprint. It too has excellent support. An added bonus is a GUI for checking printer spooling, and configuring varied options like Paper type, resolution etc. The cost of an individual license is upwards of $34.

If you decide to go with the first solution, the steps include the following. My system is a Ubuntu Xenial 64bit.

First you need some developmental headers. So add to your /etc/apt/sources.list, the following lines if you dont have them. Modify these according to your version of Linux(Debian/Ubuntu):

deb http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-proposed main restricted universe multiverse 
deb-src http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-proposed main restricted universe multiverse

Update your sources and install the build dependencies:

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get build-dep cups-common gimp-gutenprint libgutenprint-dev
sudo apt-get install build-essential

Now download the source release package for gutenberg (version >=5.2.13) from Sourceforge. 

wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/gimp-print/files/gutenprint-5.2/5.2.13/gutenprint-5.2.13.tar.bz2/download
tar xvf download
cd gutenprint-5.2.13

Alternately clone the git repo.

git clone https://git.code.sf.net/p/gimp-print/source gimp-print-source
cd gimp-print-source

Now configure, make and install.

./configure
make 
sudo make install

Source: My blog post

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