I recently purchased a Canon Pixma MP495 wireless printer for just $30 at MicroCenter. It was a great deal that I couldn’t pass up. The MP495 wireless printer typically costs $80, but I bought it for only $30 because it was purchased along with a PC desktop system.

The fun part was setting up the wireless printer to the network. I downloaded the printer drivers directly from Canon’s website, and configured the printer from my MacBook Air. I was able to successfully connect and print on the network. I was also able to get another PC to work with the printer.

This article will cover how to setup and add the Canon Pixma MP495 on Ubuntu Linux.

Printer Driver

The printer setup on the Ubuntu Linux desktop system, as it turned out, wasn’t such a big deal after all. The first thing that I needed to do was download the correct Linux printer drivers from Canon’s website.

MP495 series IJ Printer Driver Ver. 3.40 for Debian Linux

Unpack the downloaded zipped file. From the Terminal, go to the “packages” folder and choose the appropriate drivers based on your processor type and architecture. In this example, I’m using 64 bit AMD processor on my desktop. The commands I typed were:

$ sudo dpkg -i –-force-architecture cnijfilter-common_3.40-1_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i –-force-architecture cnijfilter-mp495series_3.40-1_amd64.deb

To add the printer, you should use CUPS. Since the driver is already installed, your distro should be able to recognize the printer using the CUPS setup.

Scanner Driver

MP495 series ScanGear MP Ver. 1.60 for Debian Linux

Unpack the downloaded scanner zipped file. From the Terminal, go to the “packages” folder. Once again, choose the appropriate printer driver based on your processor type and architecture. The commands I typed were:

$ sudo dpkg -i –-force-architecture scangearmp-common_1.60-1_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i –-force-architecture scangearmp-mp495series_1.60-1_amd64.deb

You should be able to launch the scanning software from the Terminal.

$ scangearmp

In addition, you can add a startup icon from the Main Menu. Here’s another instruction from Ubuntu’s support forum.