Half a Page of Scribbled Linux

The Canon Pixma Linux blog recommends a printer driver from Canon Asia. The debian package wouldn’t install, so I built from source. The top level directory has a Make file that, while not working itself, listed the subdirectories to be built. In each subdirectory, there was an INSTALL file that listed how each was to be built.
Then I restarted the printer service
service cups restart
and ran System > Administration > Printing, clicked Add, selected Network Printer and chose AppSocket/HP JetDirect. I entered the IP of the printer and left the port at its default of 9100. The IP can be found on the printer’s menu under Settings > Device Settings > LAN Settings > Display LAN Settings.

Unfortunately, the Pixma MP970 wasn’t listed. The closest model number was the MP830.

Another search turned up a newer driver, so I tried that by following the instructions in the README file. After the installation, I ran System > Administration > Printing, clicked Add, then the + next to Network Printer and then Find Network Printer and the Canon showed up. I selected it (it already had the URI) and clicked Forward. It searched for drivers, then had me choose a driver, but still no MP970. The MP150 will print greyscale supposedly (I got grey, magenta and yellow).

To enable on-screen display of the volume, mute and screen brightness buttons, edit /etc/rc.local and add
echo enable,0x00ffffff > /proc/acpi/ibm/hotkey

The TrackPoint on a ThinkPad can scroll pages without pointing to the scrollbar. If enabled, with the mouse pointer in the window you want to scroll, hold the middle mouse button and move the trackpoint in the direction you want to scroll. In Ubuntu 10.04, it’s not enabled by default. You need to download sysfsutils, configure-trackpoint and gpointing-device-settings (called “Pointing devices” in the Ubuntu Software Center) and do a little set-up.