how to solve Canon Pixma G2000 driver problems on Ubuntu 16.04?

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?

1 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 xenial-proposed main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src 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
tar xvf download
cd gutenprint-5.2.13

Alternately clone the git repo.

git clone gimp-print-source
cd gimp-print-source

Now configure, make and install.

./configure
make
sudo make install

Source: My blog post