Canon CAPT printer driver installation by scratch

niranjana_km · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2014 Posts: 14

After Gentoo's right decision (Gentoo News: 2015-03-28-true-multilib) to mask and remove all emul-linux-x86 packages and introducing a new use flag (abi_x86_32) for packages to let users to choose and build 32-bit libraries from source on multilib amd64 platforms, they removed cndrvcups-capt-2.00-r2 and cndrvcups-common-2.00-r2 packages from `calculate` overlay which we were all using. Now what next to install Canon CAPT printer driver and use the printer? Those who already installed the drivers can retain it, but each time portage warns about the masked emul-linux-x86-baselibs-20140508-r12 and emul-linux-x86-bjdeps-0.1-r3 packages which are dependencies of cndrvcups package on multilib amd64. Somebody has to create an ebuild for it. But I don't know how and as well don't have time now to learn it. The following is my successful attempt to install and use Canon LBP2900 printer on multilib amd64 Gentoo by scratch. This driver supports Canon LBP9100Cdn, LBP7210Cdn, LBP7200C series, LBP7018C/LBP7010C, LBP6310dn, LBP6300dn, LBP6300n, LBP6200, LBP6020, LBP6018/LBP6000, LBP5300, LBP5100, LBP5050 series, LBP5000, LBP3500, LBP3310, LBP3300, LBP3250, LBP3210, LBP3200, LBP3150/LBP3108/LBP3100, LBP3050/LBP3018/LBP3010, LBP3000, LBP2900, LBP-1210, LBP-1120 printers.

My gratitudes to all people of free software community who studied how these drivers work and got a way to handle them. You can see the following as summary of their efforts from nearly last 10 years. This driver was a daunting thing for me.

Before going further let me share one line from my experience, "Do not buy any printers without checking whether it is supported by either Foomatic or Gutenprint".

Installing Canon CAPT printer driver for LBP2900 by scratch:

Download Linux_CAPT_PrinterDriver_V260_uk_EN.tar.gz distributed by Canon Inc.
Unpack it to get RMP packages for 64-bit. In it they are located at Linux_CAPT_PrinterDriver_V260_uk_EN/64-bit_Driver/RPM/.
cd into the directory where the 64-bit RPMs are.

Install the CAPT printer driver module:

homoludens · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

Interesting day with both of us writing tutorials for stupid Canon printers.

I have also gotten sick of all problems with this printers and created ebuilds for 2.60 version. I'm compiling them from source and not using RPMs or DEBs, and having ebuild is much nicer - at least you can update, or even better delete them from system.

You have them as attachment in bugzilla: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=130612#c127 (tar.gz file: https://bugs.gentoo.org/attachment.cgi?id=404004)
I have also created wiki page: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Canon_CAPT_Printer where we can collect information about setting this printers up.
I have already added your sentence "Do not buy any printers without checking whether it is supported by either Foomatic or Gutenprint". there as warning.

For creating them I have used previous ebuilds in that thread https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=130612#c125 and net-print/cndrvcups-common-lb that are in portage.

I don't have amd64 so I have left that part of the code untouched, which probable means that it will not work without modification.
I know that I'm not including x11-libs/pangox-compat and sys-libs/zlib as dependencies, not "abi_x86_32" useflag for dev-libs/libxml2 and dev-libs/popt.

Their sources also might need some configuration options for amd64.

Drivers are really ugly and hard to make ebuild for them, but I think that I have ironed out most issues with x86, but I don't have amd64 gentoo in my vicinity, so it would be really nice if you could help me with trying them out and reporting errors I will try to fix them or help with them.

This ebuilds will need some work and testing to make them usable, but if few of us can get together I think we can have easy installation for a lot of people searching the web for help.

niranjana_km · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2014 Posts: 14

Sure.. I am all yours. I will try them and report any errors. Thanks for preparing ebuilds for it.

Previously, I too tried to compile and installed them on amd64 from source.
1. I got errors for cngplp and cpca in cndrvcups-common-2.60-1. So I commented these two in Makefile. Because cngplp GUI for printer settings is not a necessary item as we have CUPS for that. And from cndrvcups-common-2.60-1 the crucial thing needed was only buftool, which I could successfully compile and install.
2. Next, in cndrvcups-capt-2.60-1 I was getting errors in statusui and cngplp because of previous errors in cndrvcups-common-2.60-1. Since these two are also not necessary things I commented them in Makefile. Further I changed Makefile.am in backend, pstocapt, pstocapt2 and pstocapt3 to reflect /usr/libexec/cups/ directory used by new versions of CUPS for installing backends and filters.

I succeeded in compiling and installing these necessary things. But it was not the end, still ccpd, ccpdadmin, captfilter, captmon2, etc..... so many binaries and libraries necessary for these printers to work, for which Canon is not giving the source code, are to be copied to respective directories manually. In the end, we only have a small portion of source code of CAPT which we are compiling and istalling and remaining major portion is just copying the binaries cooked by Canon. Where is the spirit of Gentoo? So, I thought let me install them through RPMs and then insatall the remaining dependency libraries. Let this printer work first. I was tired by then.

Now I will try your ebuilds. Wish me good luck..

steveL · Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 10:31 am Post subject:

Good to see you linking up to collaborate. :)

In case you don't know it, #gentoo-dev-help on IRC: chat.freenode.net is the place to get live help and support with ebuild-writing.

Also all ebuilds are written in BASH, so #bash is essential too; ##workingset for help with build-systems (compilers, make, binutils, autoconf/automake, cmake etc.)

Good luck! :-)

homoludens · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

@niranjana_km

Yes I know off all those issues and compiling is pretty messy.
But I have addressed them all in my ebuild

Some stuff I have addressed in patches (you can find and check them out in ebuilds, where they were missing includes or had bad formating) and some in ebuilds directly (like missing libraries).

cngplp - is absolutely not needed, I we have use flag for it (disabled by default) and had multiple issues to be able to compile, biggest one was with libtool so I'm even calling "autoreconf --install --force" in ebuild to make it compile.

I'm also addressing needed changes and places for installed files. Most of the work has been done in older ebuilds, so I have made some changes to make it work correctly.

I have spend 2 whole days making those ebuilds work and I would really like that others get some benefit from them too.

Also, take note that, for some reason, https://bugs.gentoo.org are gziping my tar.gz archive. So you will need to gunzip it and than tar xzf... I still don't know how to avoid that.

Good luck!

@steveL
Thank you for invite, I will definitely come and ask some questions.

niranjana_km · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2014 Posts: 14

Your ebuilds are pulling >=app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-gtklibs-2.0 and >=app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-baselibs-10.0-r1 on amd64. As per the following Gentoo news,

https://www.gentoo.org/support/news-items/2015-03-28-true-multilib.html

Gentoo is masking the emul-linux-x86 package sets for removal. This may be the reason for removal of cndrvcups-common-2.00-r2 and cndrvcups-capt-2.00-r2 packages from calculate overlay. These ebuilds were working on amd64 and I was using them before. After their discontinue, I installed CAPT by scratch and that is the reason for my post in this forum. So, you have to write the ebuild by avoiding any emul-linux-x86* packages as dependencies so that the ebuilds sustain in the future.

As per this news, for 32-bit libraries, Gentoo introduced a new use flag `abi_x86_32` (In Gentoo's spirit, this I think is a right decision they made) for packages, which enables the libraries to be built in 32-bit version also.

Thats why they are changing or dropping the packages which requires emul-linux-x86*.

For Canon capt on amd-64, we need 32 bit dev-libs/popt, dev-libs/libxml2 and sys-libs/zlib (of course libxml2 pulls zlib). If we want captstatusui to function we need 64-bit x11-libs/pangox-compat (which is a small package).

And in configuring the filter, your ebuild gives info stating the following command,
# /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p LBP3010 -m CNCUPSLBP3050CAPTK.ppd -v ccp://localhost:59687 -E
Does this ccp://localhost:59687 works? Because for me it did not. So I created /var/ccpd/fifo0 as suggested by other unfortunates like me over the net. The ebuilds which calculate overlay was giving was also creating this fifo.

homoludens · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

Thank you for testing and explanation.

I have updated ebuilds and got advice to put them on github, so you can get updated versions here: https://github.com/homoludens/canoncapt-euilds

I have another question about amd64, this was in an old ebuild:

niranjana_km · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2014 Posts: 14

1. In the copy of Linux_CAPT_PrinterDriver_V260_uk_EN.tar.gz, which I had earlier downloaded from Canon site, I do have Src/cndrvcups-capt-2.60-1/libs64 folder. This contains 64-bit versions of ccpd and ccpdadmin. Also I have Src/cndrvcups-capt-2.60-1/libs folder which contains 32-bit versions of ccpd and ccpdadmin; both of which depends on 32-bit libcups. But those which are in libs64 depends on 64-bit cups. Hence installing those in libs64 directory will be good for amd64 as we can avoid depending on 32-bit libcups. And hence it reduces to only depending on libpopt, libxml2 and libz among 32-bit libraries only.

2. You can see in my first post above about change in location of filter and backends from /usr/lib64/cups to /usr/libexec/cups/ in recent versions of CUPS. For this, you can see some `ln -s` linking commands above in it. I too faced with - lpadmin: Bad device-uri scheme "ccp" - error earlier which then revealed this location change while on search for it. Not this problem I am talking about, in my case using ccp://localhost:59687 will not give any errors, but simply will not give any print also. Only with a fifo I could print. The following are my use flags for cups. It may be helpful. Compare it with your use flags for cups.

homoludens · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

Here are my USE flags for CUPS, we have few differences, and different versions. I have downgraded when I had some idea that Canon drivers are using functions deprecated in CUPS 2. So I will upgrade CUPS and test after that.

I have added info about wiki page in message after installing and have also added this options to that page https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Canon_CAPT_Printer, so that others can find all info we have on it.

Updated ebuilds are on https://github.com/homoludens/canoncapt-euilds

homoludens · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

Also, check your /etc/ccpd.conf you should have:

charles17 · Advocate Joined: 02 Mar 2008 Posts: 3664

homoludens · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

homoludens · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

On the other hand, Arch Wiki is stating that you don't have to blacklist usblp module any more: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CUPS#USB_printers
So it should be possible to compile cups with +usb, but you should also check if usblp module is loaded and working, since cups ebuild is suggesting disabling it in kernel when complied (I would guess that reason for this was this bug: http://cups.org/str.php?L4128 - which is now resolved).

If you are able to confirm this - we should remove that part from the gentoo wiki page.

charles17 · Advocate Joined: 02 Mar 2008 Posts: 3664

niranjana_km · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2014 Posts: 14

Hi homoludens,
Nice weekend. I tried your ebuilds. They worked fine on my amd64 installation. I could print, but still only with a fifo. The following are some points I want to make.

1. Minor: In the message for emerge of your ebuilds, it gives a short description to configure the printers. People may copy the commands in it and paste on their terminals. In the line
* /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p LBP3010 -m CNCUPSLBP3050CAPTK.ppd -v ccp://localhost:59687 –E
please change the long hyphen character – (–E) with a normal one - (-E).

2. I tried to configure with ccp://localhost:59687, but no success. I tried your suggestions. It's all fine.

homoludens · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

@charles17

I have just tried compiling net-print/cups with USE="usb" and Canon drivers are working without a problem, so I have removed USE='-usb' as dependency for this ebuilds. The question remains if other printers that work with libusb will continue to work if usblp is loaded in kernel. We should wait for someone to confirm that.

charles17 · Advocate Joined: 02 Mar 2008 Posts: 3664

homoludens · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

charles17 · Advocate Joined: 02 Mar 2008 Posts: 3664

cz0 · Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 10:32 pm Post subject:

I'm running amd64 Gentoo and I tested kernel with CONFIG_USB_PRINTER compiled both as module and builtin with CUPS usb option enabled and disabled. Seem to work in any combination of.
The only thing to notice, in my case