installing an errant printer Canon MPF50

[sbalfour]

I've got an aging Canon MPF50 (also called evidently, Canon MPC600F in Japan). It's on the parallel port.
I presume the device is /dev/lp0 (there's no/dev/lp1, etc). I do see a /dev/parport0, though). The
printer is plugged in, turned on, showing status ready, etc. I'm just trying to see if I have basic
communication. A "cat foo.ps > /dev/lp0" as root gets me no response. A "cat foo.ps > /dev/parport0" gets me "cat: write error: Invalid argument", so I guess that's not the one. From my old days using a line
printer, cat'ing something to a printer device printed it. Shouldn't the device cough, return an error code,
print garbage or something? How do I make sure that /dev/lp0 is a character device, and that there's
a ready printer on it?

The port communication is separate from any device driver issues. I can't find any linux drivers for Canon
MFP50, or MP600F. I don't need anything but basic text printing. Maybe some generic driver would be
usable for that? If so, what do I install?

Stuart

[oshunluvr]

Re: installing an errant printer Canon MPF50

Canon has abismal linux support (worse than none). Likely you best bet is to find which printer is closest to your in this list http://www.openprinting.org/printers and hope for the best.

Have you looked at cups to see if it finds it?

If you have cups installed and running, type localhost:631 in a browser URL and see if you can install it as generic or something.