[SOLVED] Brother RPM Driver mfc-290c & rolling releases question

[Raven]

Hey Everyone- I'm considering a switch to PCLinuxOS (Previously used Fedora and now another distro)..
I have read that installing packages outside of the repository is not a good idea, but it looks from what i've read on the forums, that the brother printer drivers can not be added for some reason.

So I was just wondering if I install the RPM drivers for my MFC-290c printer (which have always worked fine on another distro and fedora) - it is likely to cause issues with future updates of PCLinuxOS?

Thanks for any insight.

[djohnston]

Welcome to the forum. Your Brother printer may work with the task-printing-misc package in Synaptic. I don't know. If not, installing the manufacturer's Linux drivers would be the best way to go.

[Raven]

Hi,
When I search for task-printing-misc in Synaptic, nothing is coming up.
I'm using the XFCE distro version, so maybe that's the reason?

Thanks!

[Raven]

install task-printing and task-scanning ... then run the search

OK now feeling a bit silly .. I'm used to using YUM to install things so Synaptic is a bit new.
So how do I install a package?
I assumed I would search for the package, it would appear on the list, and then I would right click "install" or something.
Do I need to add repos to get those or am I missing something obvious.

[djohnston]

I assumed I would search for the package, it would appear on the list, and then I would right click "install" or something.

After doing what Sproggy said, left-click the package and select Install.

[Raven]

Thanks everyone!
I managed to follow your instructions for Synaptic .. [I'm a bit slow when trying to quite caffeine - don't let it happen to you  ]
and installed the printer task misc package, but it seems there is no generic cups driver for the mfc-290c.

So for anyone else with a 290c:
To get it working I had to go to the brother site:
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/index.html

Download the two RPM files for the the mfc-290c, and then run the rpm install commands via terminal.
In my case:
rpm -ihv --nodeps mfc290clpr-1.1.2-2.i386.rpm
rpm -ihv --nodeps mfc290ccupswrapper-1.1.2-2.i386.rpm

Seems to be working fine [knock on wood].

[Sproggy]

this is awesome ...

[djohnston]

That's good news, Raven. Glad you got it working.