Installing a Brother printer

From Mandriva Community Wiki

Installing a Brother printer without Brother provided Linux drivers

Tip !

To get a list of available printer drivers and devices, open a Terminal and type:

[user@mycomputer ~]$ lpinfo -v

Follow the steps below to install a Brother printer:

1. Make sure that the USB cable of the Brother printer is not yet connected.

2. Configure your computer>Set up the printers

Configure printing and scanning

3. A window will pop up requesting for the package Task-printing-misc to be installed (Mandriva will also install other packages if needed).

RPM Installation

Please note!
If the system is connected to the Internet, Mandriva will download the appropriate packages, which includes various drivers from manufacturers. If the system is not online but the DVD media of Mandriva is available, it can be used as a repository and install the Task-printing-misc package from there.

4. Connect the Brother printer securely to the USB port and switch it on. Mandriva will identify the Brother's model and search for drivers.

Printer being detected

5. If Mandriva does not automatically detect the connected printer, initiate the hardware detection by clicking on Server>New>Printer.

Printer Settings window

6. Mandriva will select a Brother printer from its database of printer drivers and provide the Location, Make and Model, and Device URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). Ensure that the Device URI has "USB". If not, click on the Change button and select USB.

Printer Settings window

7. Note that the Make and Model displayed in the printer window may not match the Brother printer plugged into the system. This is because Mandriva will not always have the specific model's drivers but will substitute a similar driver instead. Click on the Print Test Page to ensure that this substitute driver works.

8. To verify that Mandriva properly installed the printer, open a browser such as Opera or Firefox. Type in http://localhost:631/printers. Type this address in manually. The browser will actually try to fill it out the address and may open an incorrect page.

CUPS opened via Chrome

9. If the Brother printer is successfully installed, it should now be listed as one of the devices in Configure your computer>Set up the Printers window.

Brother printer listed in Printers

Follow the steps below to install a Brother printer using Brother-provided Linux drivers

Installing a Brother printer using proprietary Linux drivers requires two files. One is a lpr driver file and another is a cupswrapper file.

1. Download the Brother Linux drivers. The Brother Solutions Center web site [1] provides the files and installation steps.

Brother Linux Driver site

LPR and Cupswrapper RPMs

Please note!
The lpr and cupswrapper files are available as either .deb or .rpm. Mandriva is a RPM-based distribution so download the respective files in RPM format.

Save the download to a path you can access via Terminal or Dolphin later.

2. Open Terminal. Navigate to the folder where the Brother lpr and cupswrapper files are located.

Type the following command to install the lpr file:

[root@mycomputer ~]# rpm -ihv --nodeps (filename of the lpr file)

Type the following command to install the cupswrapper file:

[root@mycomputer ~]# rpm -ihv --nodeps (filename of the cupswrapper file)

3. Turn on the Brother printer. In most cases, Mandriva's system tray will indicate the brand and model of the printer.

Printer notification

4. Follow steps 7-9 from the preceding section to check if the printer is properly installed.

Please note!

If the Brother printer was installed without the Brother Linux driver previously and made use of a substitute instead, remove the previous installation by going to the Configure your computer>Set up the Printers. Two Brother printers would be listed there. Right-click and click Delete first Brother installation.

Delete copy of printer