Finding and using an "installed" printer driver

Question

Hi all.....I apologize in advance for the long post.....been a PC user since DOS days and recently picked up a refurbed Mac Mini. Already upgraded it to Leopard (10.5.1) upped the RAM to 2G and replaced the HD with a 7200 RPM Hitachi.
Now I'm trying to get the Mini to access a Canon i470D printer attached to a Linksys PSUS4 USB print server/switch. The switch is configured (using my PC) and the i470D will print fine through the PSUS4 using my PC.
I did some Googling on how to use a Mac with the PSUS4 and it was pretty straightforward, so now I have the Mini seeing the printserver and printer, but when I try to actually install the printer (through system prefs/print and fax) and give it the correct drivers I'm running into problems.
I went to the Canon web site and pulled down their 4.8.3 driver package and it supposedly installed correctly (after a required restart). When I try to add the printer, the print and fax advanced settings initially chooses "generic postscript printer" which doesn't work at all, so I pull down the selection box and if I go to "select a driver" there's a list of Canon printers there but they're all Gutenprint drivers...the closest to my printer is the i560...I tried that driver and it's ok for printing out simple one page text docs - all I tested so far - but when I tried a test page from the "print queue" window, it hangs the printer up about 1/8 of the way through the page, so obviously that's not the right driver....but it tells me the Mini is connected and communicating to the printer.
The last choice in the driver pulldown is "Other", so I chose that and navigated to the library/printers/canon/bjprinters/resources/databases where I can see an i470D.db file. But if I select "open", nothing happens....so I assume that's not the right file to select???
I had the same problem trying to load drivers for a Samsung ML-2010 laser printer connected through my PC...I downloaded the OSX drivers from Samsung and installed them, but could never get the system to point to the right 2010 file...so I resorted to using the "included with Leopard" ML5310 file, which seems to be fine so far (although I would like to use the propoer file).
So, is this a Leopard thing? Me being a Mac newb missing the obvious thing? neither? both?....any help on finding where the actual driver file is (and getting it to be used) would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The state of affairs in Mac print drivers is a little screwy.
(drivers on OS X aren't like on Windows, where a driver is a driver...)
There are 2 driver APIs (methods/ways to program) -- one that uses Carbon, so it is actually a legacy of OS 9; the other is CUPS, the modern OS X way. All manufacturers (of non-postscript printers) except Brother have elected to stay with Carbon drivers. I'm quite certain this is because with Carbon drivers, they get to choose which comm protocol gets included in the driver -- and that limits the driver.
So, short answer - your Canon (and Samsung) driver was written to use USB only. You need a CUPS driver to use the CUPS networking protocols (like IP printing) available in OS X.
Search for CUPS drivers here:
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/macosx
and here:
http://www.printfab.net
(note that the Gutenprint open source drivers included in OS X are CUPS drivers)