Can't install Brother Printer on PCLOS 2012-9 (Linux 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs)

[ianw]

Hi All

I have a Brother MFC8860DN printer that has been working fine with a couple of other "flavours" of Linux and for the past two years with PCLOS!!

I have just upgraded the OS to the latest (NOT Full Monty) and can not now get it to work.

STEP 1 - I have all the downloads.
STEP 2/3/4 - It installs the driver fine (rpm -ihv brmfc8660dnlpr-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm)
STEP 5 - It installs the CUPS Driver fine (rpm -ihv cupswrapperMFC8660DN-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm)
STEP 6 - Check CUPS Driver - returns no result. (??)
STEP 7 - Check Printer on CUPS Web Interface - Lists printer status as "Processing" (??)
STEP 8 - Check Printcap (cat /etc/printcap) - Returns "MFC8660DN|MFC8660DN:rm=localhost.localdomain:rp=MFC8660DN:"
STEP 9 - Restart Printer System (/etc/init.d/lpr restart) - Returns "No such file or directory"

And this is correct there IS no such file there!! Where has it moved to or what changes must I make to get this working again??

Print Jobs do NOT go through to the printer!!!
I keep getting an info box popping up saying that no Driver is installed for the printer!!
The printer's Scanner is working fine however!!

Many thanks for any help.

IanW

[Meemaw]

Depending on your printer, there was probably already a driver there so you may not have had to install one. We don't recommend installing from outside the repos anyway....

Have you gone into PCC (Configure Your Computer) and actually added your printer? surely you have...

and have you thought of upgrading your kernel? I think we are up to 3.2 something.

Someone else with more knowledge than I will probably come along and help you...

 

[ianw]

Thanks Meemaw!!

I have always used the instructions from the Brother Driver WebSite to set-up the printer and this has been working for the past 4 years!!

PCC shows the Printer there but if I go through the Troubleshooting it comes back with the message - "There is no solution, do you want to log a Bug report?".

I removed the printer from PCC and tried to search for it and it does not find it. It asks for a 'URI'. What is this??

You say I should up-date my Kernel. I upgrade every month the System through Synaptic. What else must I do to upgrade the Kernel?

Thanks for the help!!

[Phil]

Hi Ian,

In computing, a uniform resource identifier (URI) is a string of characters used to identify a name or a resource.

Kernel stuff:

Kernels are not updated in the normal way. You have to do it yourself via synaptic.

1. Back up your / system (clonezilla, make a live cd copy, the O-P way)
2. In a terminal type this:

uname -r
3.2.18-pclos1.pae.bfs

Mine is pae which on a 32 bit machine enables more memory to be used.

3. Fire up synaptic and look for "kernel". Select the equivalent of what you already have.
DO NOT UNINSTALL YOUR EXISTING KERNEL.

Mine is as above.

4. Install.

5. Reboot.

NOTE - It will take an eternity for the machine to boot up, 5 -10 minutes at least. Leave the machine alone, press Esc to see what it is doing. It is rebuilding kernel modules and other things. Next boot will be normal.

6. Check new kernel is in use, uname -r.

7. Do nothing else, your old kernel is there as a backup and can be accessed by the grub screen on boot.

[menotu]

Can't install Brother Printer on PCLOS 2012-9 (Linux 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs)

I have just upgraded the OS to the latest (NOT Full Monty) and can not now get it to work.

Hi ianw it'sa probably down to a simple typo error in the post but if it's not can I suggest you check the ISO you used as I'm unaware that a 2012-9 has been released except for Full Monty (pclinuxos-kde-fullmonty-2012.09.iso)

[ianw]

Thanks Memaw and Menotu

Thanks for the info re URI. So how do I find out what the URI for my printer is??

I'll look at updating the Kernel - thanks for the detailed instructions.

Regarding my version of PCLOS - I was sent Full Monty but it was a disaster and would NOT work at all with my system so I gave that up and re-installed 2011-09, which is the only other CD I have here. (Due to Bandwidth performance and cost it's not practical for me to download from here!!). I then did an upgrade through Synaptic and I was under the impression this took me to 2012-9. But I could be wrong!!

How do I find this out??

Thanks all.

[GreggB]

Here are my notes from when I recently installed a Brother driver on my 2012.8 system. I'm not sure if step 1 and 2 are still required, the place I found the instructions was a few years old. Step 3 is actually a copy of the console:

1) install tcsh
2) Remove "$META_CLASS" from the setenv command
[root@localhost src]# vi /etc/profile.d/10pclinuxos-release.csh
3)...
[root@localhost src]# rpm -ihv --nodeps mfc7460dnlpr-2.1.0-1.i386.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:mfc7460dnlpr           ########################################### [100%]
[root@localhost src]# rpm  -qa  |  grep  -e mfc7460dn
mfc7460dnlpr-2.1.0-1
[root@localhost src]# rpm -ihv --nodeps cupswrapperMFC7460DN-2.0.4-2.i386.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:cupswrapperMFC7460DN   ########################################### [100%]
Stopping CUPS printing system:                                  [  OK  ]
Adding loopback device to routing table ...
Starting CUPS printing system:                                  [  OK  ]
Re-enabling disabled print queues:

4) Set Up in PCLinuxOS Control Centre

[ianw]

Thanks Gregg

I appreciate the step-by-step instructions!! Very similar to what I did before.

I have - yesterday - been onto the Brother site and found and downloaded new updated Driver files.

I now have two questions ....

1) If I try and install these I get a list of "conflicts" with the files that are already installed. Do you know how to wipe these old files out of the system to start from scratch??

2) Your 'STEP 4 - Set Up in PCLinuxOS Control Centre' - Can you give me details on how you do this please?

Thanks a lot I appreciate the help.

[ianw]

Hi Gregg

Don't worry - I got it working!!!!

I puzzled out to go to Synaptic and remove all the files from there and following your steps it worked fine.

I'm printing again !!

Thanks