So first of all a brief description of the problem…

The Mp150 Printer installed in Fedora Core 7, Fedora Core 8, Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn, is NOT WORKING…using the standard drivers it simply prints blank, or completly white pages, even if in the *official* linux printing resource database, it is given as “Perfectly Working”…

Solutions:

1_ Use and Install Turboprint driver, FULL WORKING but ….. you MUST PAY…to have them working…

2_

Follow this simple guide….

This guide is full working for both the Mp150 & Mp160 series… and, even if IT IS a STEP by STEP guide for Fedora Core 7 it should be easily adapted to others linux distribuctions…(at least those rpm and gnome based)

so,

first of all, what do you need ? This time I’m not giving direct rpms links, just to avoid mistakes, and make the guide more easy…

Install Cups (usually already installed, it’s better if 1.3.4 or newer)

Install Gutenprint (please use the lastest, at least the 5.0.1, do not use the old one included in fedora’s 7 CD)

Install gutenprint-foomatic

Install the Mp160 Printer Drivers ver. 2.70 avaiable from Canon (RPM and Source code avaible — they’re useful even for Mp150 — file names are cnijfilter-common-2.70-1.i386.rpm & cnijfilter-mp160-2.70-1.i386.rpm)

What to do now ?

For Fedora 7 Distribuction

1- Connect the Printer

2-Click on “System” -> “Administration” -> “Printing” (system-config-printer)

3-Then if everything is ok, you should see your printer “MP150″, so click on it’s name.

4-Then Near “Make and Model” Click Change

5-Now choose “Canon” -> then look for “Mp160 ver2.70″ and choose this one.

6->Confirm the changes, and choose to change all the previous configuration

The printer now should be WORKING !!!

What to do if…

if you can’t find your printer in cups…

You’re probably experiencing some problems CUPS-Related, take care of them using CUPS documentation

if you are not using using rpm based distribution…

Install from source…(probably you need urpm)

if you can’t find “Mp150 ver. 2.70″, between your Canon Drivers in CUPS)

Do a step back, returning to Manifactures page… -> Choose “Provide a .ppd file” -> look for “canonmp160.ppd” it should be in /usr/share/cups/model… anyway it comes from the canon drivers…)

if you’re not using gnome…

Use your printer manager…and hope for the best…

if you’re tring to share the printer using Samba and/or Webmin…

You need to change an option… from Samba page in Webmin

choose “Windows to Unix Printing” -> and “CUPS” as Unix Print Style

As usual, hope it’s useful…