This article outlines in simple steps how to install the Canon MP610 printer drivers and get up and running on a 64-bit Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 platform.
The Canon MP610 is an excellent printer and several previous versions of Ubuntu supported this printer right-out of the box, plug and play style. Unfortunately, the 64-bit Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 does not have plug and play support for this printer and thus, it does not install by default. Furthermore, the 64-bit pre-built drivers for this printer are not available. However, the 32-bit pre-built drivers are available. Lastly, there is also a dependency failure for the libcupsys2 package in the 32-bit version of the driver (the libcupsys2 package has been superseded with the libcup2 package). The situation suddenly appears quite technical and does not look very good.
There are several websites and forums that propose solutions to the above problems. These solutions vary from compiling the printer drivers from source, to moving around several library files from one folder to another and so on. Although these solutions work, they are not satisfactory in my eyes because they are prohibitive for all but advanced users of Linux. A good solution should be as simple as possible but no simpler.
To that end, I will outline below several simple commands that may be run from a terminal (cut-and-paste) which will successfully install the Canon MP610 printer drivers on a 64-bit Ubuntu 10.04 platform. I will then finish this article by outlining how to setup the printer and print a test page.
6 Simple Steps to install the Canon MP610 Printer Driver on 64-bit Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04
- Ensure the prerequisite packages are installed. Open up a terminal (From the Ubuntu Desktop Menubar, Select:
Applications | Accessories | Terminal)
and run the following command:
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs cups libcups2 libcups2-dev build-essential - Download the Canon MP610 32-bit printer driver package from the Canon Website. The driver package is called MP610_debian.tgz (<7MB). Note: I have linked to the European Canon website, you may obtain the driver from the Canon website appropriate to your location.
- Extract the contents of the package MP610_debian.tgz to a folder of your choice. It should contain the following three files:
- cnijfilter-common_2.80-1_i386.deb
- cnijfilter-mp610series_2.80-1_i386.deb
- cnijfilter-common-2.80-1.tar
- Install the cnijfilter-common driver using the following command:
sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture --ignore-depends=libcupsys2 cnijfilter-common_2.80-1_i386.deb - Install the cnijfilter-mp610 driver using the following command:
sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture --ignore-depends=libcupsys2 cnijfilter-mp610series_2.80-1_i386.deb - Lastly, restart the CUPS service.
sudo /etc/init.d/cups restart
Wait a few moments to allow CUPS to restart before continuing on to the next section.
5 Simple Steps to Setup the Canon MP610 Printer and Print a test page.
- From the Ubuntu Desktop Menubar, Select:
System | Administration | Printing - Select Add to add a printer.
- Select Canon MP610 when prompted for a device.
The Installer will attempt to locate a driver for the printer. This may take a few minutes. - A dialog box containing details of the printer will be presented. Select:
Apply - You will then be asked if you wish to print a test page. Select:
Yes.
Congratulations!!! You may now print using the Canon MP610 printer.
the seeker's quill 
this unfortunately does not seem to work. The –ignore-package=libcupsys2 section is deemed as an unknown option to dpkg, and the ia-32 lib does not seem part of the standard Lucid repository. I too noticed the libcupsys error when attempting to re-install my MP610; it is the best way to get borderless printing (or nearly so).
Any ideas on the issues I have raised would be most welcome.
try –ignore-depends=libcupsys2 instead.. it works
Thanks for spotting my typos! 🙂
interesting, thanks for sharing
Hey, I deal with the same topic on my blog.
I edited my PPD printer file to enable black-white printing and more. You can link it for your readers, if you want.
Greets anyway! http://en.eduard-dopler.de/36/install-canon-mp640-on-ubuntu/
[…] τον οδηγό από το site της canon ακολουθώντας τις οδηγίες εδώ. Το πρόβλημα σχετίζεται ίσως με την απουσία του libcupsys2 […]
Fantastic stuff, thank you very much.
Worked great. I have been looking for the 64 bit counterpart and I found your site. Thanks so much.
Nearly successful for me… For some reason, I had no troubles last year when doing a new install of ubuntu 10.04 x64 and using the same approach as I’d done for my previous 8.04 x32. But I’ve just had to set up a new HDD and this time, the setup was from 10.04.1 and I had to use your instructions to get around the architecture issue. – for a Canon MP600
Now, cups and/or the ubuntu GUI for printers finds the printer, and I can scan OK, but print jobs just don’t seem to make it from my computer to the printer, along a whopping 1.2m of USB cable. Not even after a few restarts.
My error log isn’t giving me any hints either, though I’m somewhat a novice at deciphering some of that!
Thanks for giving the tips above to get me this far though 🙂
Solved my issue, it came down to the mp600 driver being 32 bit, and my ubuntu install being 64 bit. My ubuntu install has 32-bit libraries in /lib32 and /usr/lib32; I had to make sure I’d downloaded the relevant 32-bit libraries to these directories, and made symlinks for the libraries that cifmp600 was looking for. These links had to go to the 32 bit libraries, not the 64 bit ones so just a bit of tweaking involved. Made use of getlibs and readelf from the command line to help check and solve my links/libraries issues.
Now the printer seems to happily spit out print jobs 🙂
Also posted info on
http://mp610.blogspot.com/2007/11/setup-canon-pixma-mp600-or-mp610.html
but still to show up at time of writing this note.
This worked for me on 32-bit Linux Mint 11, HOWEVER, the package manager (apt-get, synaptic etc) complain that there is a broken package (cnijfilter-common…) and will not install anything until the problem is solved. This is a bit of a show stopper as I cant install any more software!
Any thoughts how to fix?
Ta, Simon.
Highly energetic blog, I loved that bit. Will there be a part 2?