It needs to have the printer properly installed in the os so it can be
written to. Some printers are just a pita to get going my canon pixma ip1200
being one of them if I put it on a windows machine and network to it I can
sort of use it, however I have had no luck with it directly connected to the
linux machine.

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/OpenPrinting

will hopefully give you the info you need to get that part of it working
properly. Lists mine as a paperweight