I'm trying to install either a .deb or .rpm driver for a Canon MF212w printer. Unfortunately since CachyOS is an Arch-based OS it lacks a straightforward way to go with the installation. I checked out a few different tutorials on Youtube but they all basically say to not do it their way since it could work but at the cost of messing up some dependencies. Is there a safe way to install either version of this program without damaging any other files or directories?
~/Downloads/linux-UFRII-drv-v620-us/x64/RPM
❯ ls -l
.rw-r--r-- 7.5M admin 4 Jun 22:56 cnrdrvcups-ufr2-us-6.20-1.01.x86_64.rpm
~/Downloads/linux-UFRII-drv-v620-us/x64/Debian
❯ ls -l
.rw-r--r-- 7.6M admin 4 Jun 22:56 cnrdrvcups-ufr2-us_6.20-1.01_amd64.deb
I'll try deb2arch soon. For now though what can I do with a tarball? I thought tar.gz just meant a compressed file by tar = tape archive and gz being the gzip program used to compress it. From my limited knowledge, this just looks like a compressed file with the files needed to run in either a fedora or debian environment.
Tarballs let you compile the driver yourself.
https://linuxvox.com/blog/install-tarball-linux/
How are you on an Arch based distro but don’t know what a tarball is? That seems crazy to me.
Because I've tried some of the more "beginner friendly" distros that don't offer the things I'm looking for. Proper Nvidia drivers, access to VPNs, and a few other basics I need aren't easy to install in the other distros I've tried like Mint or Bazzite compared to what Arch has to offer. Considering there are a few other things I want to do with my PC it makes sense to jump into the deep end and figure it out as I go along.
I meant that I found it weird that you don't know what a tarball is but use an arch based distro. Most people using a highly configurable system like that would have some experience under their belt and already know about tarballs.
More power to you though. I guess learning on the fly can be fun but I would recommend getting a linux book for basics like this. This probably won't be the last time you have to compile something from source.