Epson Stylus C64 and Mandrake Linux 9.1

[emh]

I bought an Epson Stylus C64 printer a few days ago, but was unaware that the printer was too new to be in the driver database for Mandrake 9.1 or 9.2.

 

According to the info from linuxprinting.org, the printer needed gimpprint 4.3.21 or higher to use.

 

Unfortunately, there are no Mandrake RPMS for that version.

 

So the only thing I could do would download the source code and compile it. (latest version as of this writing was 4.3.25)

 

However, instead of typing:

 

./configure

 

I had to type:

 

./configure --enable-static

 

Then, you can do the regular "make" and "make install" (although I ran "checkinstall" instead to create an rpm)

 

Then, as root, type:

 

service cups restart

 

Then, load up Printer Drake (or go into the Mandrake Control Center, and select "Hardware" then "Printers)

 

From there, you'll be able to select the Epson Stylus C64 printer, and then it will work like a charm.

 

I had a bit of a spell trying to get this to work. I finally did, however, and I thought I would share how I got it working.

 

The "--enable-static" is important because it builds static libraries for the gimp-print driver. This way, you won't have conflicts with the already installed Mandrake RPMS when you try to install the later gimp-print driver.