Support (PISI) for Canon PIXMA multifunctionals

[Michiel]

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in an attempt to get my brandnew Canon Pixma MP520 all-in-one printer/scanner working in Pardus.
I downloaded the Linux drivers from a Canon website (RPM packages) converted them to tar with rpm2targz, untarred them, and manually placed all files in their destination folders.
I did however not succeeed and was not able to get it working.
The MP520 is recognised at the USB port (when adding a new printer), however the software part (drivers etctera) appears difficult.

Apart from my MP520 all-in-one I recently had major problems with my old CanonS520 inkjet printer after a Pardus upgrade, and multiple Canon devices of other users appeared to encounter problems (read that in the dutch forum).
Apart from the support for (worldwide frequently used) Canon devices in general, I get the impression that something is wrong with the CUPS functionality in Pardus 2007.3, e.g. when you enter 127.0.0.1:631 in a browser window, you get a 404 File not Found instead of a CUPS page, and print jobs are often queued/waiting in the printjobviewer, but are never printed in the end.

To conclude what I would wish is:

1) Support (PISI package equivalent to RPM or DEB packages for other distros) for Canon PIXMA all-in-ones in Pardus
2) Enhanced Canon/CUPS functioning in general in Pardus.

Hope the "printer problems" will have full attention and are a major issue for Pardus 2008. (It would not be a good thing that Pardus requires HP prdocuts per se to fully work).

After spending a couple of hours as a pioneer trying to get the PIXMA working in Pardus, just before going to sleep I switched to my second distro JAD which is actually OpenSUSE 10.2. It took me (no joke) ONLY 15 MINUTES to downlaod the RPM packages for the drivers, install them with "Smart Package Manager", open YAST (the TASMA equivalent) and notcie the PIXMA was already correctly recognised including the correct drivers, pressing test page, and happily conclude that my brandnew printer works under Linux!
So it is possible, and Pardus Linux can win a lot of interested public when improving this sort of issues, especially since printer support is a basic thing of working with computers for dummies up to experts, isn't it?

Hope you (developers) are encouraged by this WISH which is meant as positive and constructive feedback, and is not meant to blame anyone or so.

Keep up the good work, Pardus is worth it!