Canon PIXMA E470 Drivers

Canon is famous for their printer and other consumer electronics. However, they're been famous for being notorious to device maintainer. Folks like me who maintain the premise infrastructure seriously went through hell just to configure them. In this page, we'll review on how to install Canon E470 drivers for Debian.

NOTE:

This guide *might* break the FrankenDebian rule (although they specified GPU only).

1. Download from Official Portal IMPORTANT

Go to the link: https://search-id.canon-asia.com/sims-search/canon__id_en__id_p_en/search.x?q=&d=Download&modelName=PIXMA+E470&resultperpage=10&g_os=Linux%2064bit. Make sure the link is official site of Canon company. There are various unofficial or 3rd party sites hosting the same installers but most of them are either outdated or untrustable. Since you're using Debian, you have to adhere the strict open-source discipline in sourcing your software.

As of Jan 9, 2019, the correct version is

Printer - 5.40 (https://support-my.canon-asia.com/contents/MY/EN/0100839901.html)
Scanner - 3.50 (https://support-my.canon-asia.com/contents/MY/EN/0100911101.html)

You should search and download the latest versions.

2. Install CUPS Package

Those packages rely on Linux CUPS printer package. You need to install it:

$ sudo apt install cups -y

3. Power On Your and Connect Your Printer

Depending on you, you should setup your printer connection and power it on. Keep in mind that:

For network printing, you need to download the mobile application and change your printer radio settings to wifi configurations (blinking blue light and emitting a wifi "canone400_series" settings). Make sure you set it up properly according to the manual:
- Printable via the phone app through your wifi (not Wifi Direct)
- On your computer, you can run $ ping <printer IP address> and get good response.
- Make sure you set your firewall to "allow connection from that IP address". There are various way to set firewall depending which one you installed.
For USB, just connect it to your computer.

4. Unpack Printer Driver and Run install.sh

Now that we're ready for installation, let's unpack the printer driver first and run the installation.

$ tar -xzf cnijfilter2-5.40-1-deb.tar.gz         # this is version 5.40

$ cd cnijfilter2-5.40-1-deb

$ sudo ./install.sh

Follow the instruction inside and complete the installation. Using this version, it supports network mode. After the installation, you can test the printing to ensure it is working properly.

5. Unpack Scanner Driver and Run install.sh

Now that the printer is ready, you can proceed to install the scanner driver. As of version 3.40, it supports network mode.

$ tar -xzf scangearmp2-3.40-1-deb.tar.gz         # this is version 3.40

$ cd scangearmp2-3.40-1-deb

$ sudo ./install.sh

Follow the instruction inside and complete the installation. Using this version, it supports network mode. After the installation, you can launch the Canon ScanGear software via terminal; test it out and you should be fine.

$ scangearmp2

6. Create Shortcut for ScanGear [Optional]

Since ScanGear is currently terminal-command only, you can create a desktop shortcut for it. There are various way of doing it but one of my quick and dirty way is to create a bash script. To do that, create a file and name it ScanGear and it should contains the following contents: