Expériences

A free driver is now available as an alternative for LBP-810 and LBP-1120.

Warning: the modifications described here maybe illegal due to stupid licence restrictions.

This driver is applicable for Canon LBP* CAPT WinGDI-based USB printers.

Files

You need the driver file from Canon :
Linux-driver-capt-e-1.10.tar.gz
You can get this tarball from your usual Canon support website (Search for linux).

The driver is published in rpm so you need alien to translate them to the debian’s deb package format :
# apt-get install alien

It’s a backend to CUPS so you also need it :
# apt-get install cupsys

Finally you’ll need fakeroot to alien the rpms :
# apt-get install fakeroot

Untar

Untar the tarball :
$ tar xvzf Linux-driver-capt-e-1.10.tar.gz

Alien

Alien the two rpms (you need to be root so use fakeroot):
$ cd CAPTlinux_1-1/rpms
$ fakeroot alien cndrvcups*.rpm

Install

Install the two packages :
# dpkg -i cndrvcups*.deb

Tweak

The Alien tool seem to lose some parts of the original rpms during translation, we’ll need to make these manually.
First, restart cups to load the ppds :
# /etc/init.d/cupsys stop
Make sure the daemon is stopped :
$ ps aux|grep cupsd
If it’s not stopped, kill it :
# killall cupsd
Then finally start it again :
# /etc/init.d/cupsys start
These ugly steps are needed because the installation of the ccp backend seems to sometime f*ck up CUPS when it’s running and prevents it from stopping.

Then create the directories and fifos needed by the daemon (ccpd) and the monitor (captmon) :
# mkdir /var/ccpd
# mkdir /var/captmon
# mkfifo /var/ccpd/fifo0
You can make more fifos if you own more than one CAPT printer, naming them fifo1, fifo2 …

Add your printer to the CUPS spooler :
# /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p [NameOfPrinter] -m [PPDFILE.PPD] -v ccp:/var/ccpd/fifo0 -E
(/var/ccpd/fifo0, fifo1, fifo2 … if multiple printers)
Example for LBP1120 :
# /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p LBP1120 -m CNCUPSLBP1120CAPTJ.PPD -v ccp:/var/ccpd/fifo0 -E

Setup ccpd to handle the printer :
# /usr/sbin/ccpdadmin -p NameOfPrinter -o /dev/usb/lp0
(/dev/udb/lp0, lp1, lp2 if multiple printers)
Example for LBP1120 :
# /usr/sbin/ccpdadmin -p LBP1120 -o /dev/usb/lp0

Create (or replace existing script by) a debian compliant ccpd daemon script I made :
(/etc/init.d/ccpd)

#!/bin/sh
#
# ccpd		startup script for Canon Printer Daemon for CUPS
#
#		Modified for Debian GNU/Linux
#		by Raphael Doursenaud <rdoursenaud@free.fr>.

DAEMON=/usr/sbin/ccpd
LOCKFILE=/var/lock/subsys/ccpd
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
NAME=ccpd
DESC="Canon Printer Daemon for CUPS"

test -f $DAEMON || exit 0

case $1 in
  start)
	echo -n "Starting $DESC: $NAME"
	start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec $DAEMON
	echo "."
	;;
  stop)
	echo -n "Stopping $DESC: $NAME"
	start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --exec $DAEMON
	echo "."
	;;
  status)
	echo "$DESC: $NAME:" `pidof $NAME`
	;;
  restart)
	echo -n "Restarting $DESC: $NAME"
	start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --exec $DAEMON
	sleep 1
	start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec $DAEMON
	echo "."
	;;
  *)
	echo "Usage: ccpd {start|stop|status}"
	exit 1
	;;
esac

exit 0

Start the ccpd dameon.
# /etc/init.d/ccpd start

You’re done.

Tests

First step :
Simply issue the following command :
# ccpdamin
You should see your printer listed, with status.

Second step :
Issue the following command :
$ captstatusui -P [NameOfPrinter]
Example for LBP1120
$ captstatusui -P LBP1120
You should see « Ready to print ».

If one test or another fails, please consider reinstalling the driver, you may have missed something.

And now print!

TODO

* Make startup script work at bootup
- Real Debian packages : NEW! Test packages available : cndrvcups-common_1.10-2_i386 cndrvcups-capt_1.10-2_i386
* Create symlinks for startup script at bootup
* Write an assistant for printer configuration
* Include french translations
* Tanslate /usr/share/captmon/msgtable.xml to french
* Make cngplp fr.po and statusui fr.po
* Rewrite this how-to for Ubuntu both in english and french and post it to the respective WiKis