Brother printer drivers [SOLVED]

[The Chief]

I have three Brother wireless printers, but only one is in the drivers that come with PCLOS.

HL-5370DW - driver in repo and works fine (Brother released Linux driver in March 2009).

HL-2270DW - no driver in repo (Brother released Linux driver in October 2010).  Driver is here:
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/download_prn.html#HL-2270DW  Note:  I have installed it with the HL-2170DW driver and it seems to have all the features, so no real problem with this one.

MFC-J6510DW - no driver in repo (Brother released Linux driver in October 2012).  Driver is here:
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/download_prn.html#MFC-J6510DW  The Brother MFC selections currently in PCLOS are rather thin, so I haven't actually tried to pick a close alternative for this one.

Since I have not had much success installing the printer drivers directly from Brother, even following their instructions, is there a possibility of a driver update any time soon?

Or, alternatively, a bit of hand holding on driver installation?

[Lucky Blue]

Hello to  The Chief

This is a response to your question based on my own experience rather than knowledge of how things work.  When answering this type of question the answer can be boring and too detailed, or it can assume too much of the reader, or it can repeat things the questioner has already tried.  Well here is an attempt anyway. 

I have a Brother HL2040 laser printer which for some reason worked in the 2-year back version of our distro, KDE3 version, but not in 2012-12 (I have only recently updated from a new downloaded ISO.  Do not tell the old timers as not updating regularly with Synaptic is very naughty!)   
 
I found I had to do two things that newbies may not feel comfortable with:
Download and install files not obtained from our own repository, I think this is ok in this case, these are not programs but drivers; 
and, use the command line from a terminal.   
Note:
1   The commands and syntax I used may not be exactly the commands recommended by Brother on their site, but they worked for me.   
2   After entering each rpm command, do not panic but give the PC time to think, about a minute.   

Give it a go.  I am pretty ham-fisted and often manage to inadvertently get things wrong, but it worked for me. 
If this does not work for you, full money back, but post up here anyway. 

I suppose one could ask, Why are these drivers not already provided in the distro, eg in
'task-printing-misc'  ?   
Well, maybe for the same reason that even MS does not provide instant support for every printer.

But first,
Step [ A ]
Try the usual methods to install
When installing drivers the printer should be switched on and plugged-in.
If the printer is USB, turn it off and turn it on again. On some distros an automatic setup of the printer gets triggered.

See you next post  ..

[Lucky Blue]

Continued   .. ..

[ B ] 
In  PC Control Center, "System," "Manage system services"
ensure CUPS daemon is enabled.  (cups-lpd)

[ C ]
Open Synaptic
(As routine, Reload, Mark All upgrades, Apply, let it finish) 
Then, find and install if not already installed
     task-printing 
     task-printing-misc
If there is no message to reboot, no reboot is necessary (with luck). 

[ D ]
Try  [ A ]  again

[ E ] 
If printer does not install,
probably two files will need to be downloaded.
Try:
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/download_prn.html
Choose and click the name of your printer. Then select the files needed.   
If your Brother printer is not on the Brother web page-  oh dear!
For PCLINUXOS choose rpm not deb versions. 
(   In my case the two files were:   
brhl2040lpr-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm   
cupswrapperHL2040-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm   )
   
Download them to the 'Download' folder. 
Check with file manager, eg Dolphin, that they are there. 

[ F ]
Open a terminal  and go to the Download folder: 
Use command 'cd'  to change folder as needed
eg.    cd ..     changes directory one level up
eg     cd ../mp3/country     goes one level up then two down

Use command  'ls' to confirm that the files are there.    (ell ess)
ls   means   list. 

Log in as root: 
type  su then   enter 
then type your root password   enter 
 
Then use command 'rpm'  to unpack and install:
(The rpm syntax is
"U"   Update with or without earlier version installed    .
"v"   verbose 
"h"   shows command is working by printing hashes)

type    (in my case it was)
rpm -Uvh brhl2040lpr-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm 
enter
then type
rpm -Uvh cupswrapperHL2040-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm
enter

The result for each should, eventually, look like-
[root@localhost Downloads]# rpm -Uvh brhl2040lpr-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm
Preparing...                                                          ########################################### [100%]
   1:brhl2040lpr                                                      ########################################### [100%]
[root@localhost Downloads]#
 
If there are unresolved dependencies (unlikely)
they will be shown     - find and install them.   

[ G ]
Try  [ A ]  again

[ H ]
If still no luck
have you perhaps borked your installation? 
I have done this a few times, once recently trying to get this printer up.   
You may have to re-install.  Test by booting up from your iso cd. 
Repeat all the above. 
If it works (!) that shows that the distro and method are ok with your printer.
You can then re-install onto the HD and may need to repeat the above again. 

I hope this is of use to someone
cheers   

[The Chief]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, LuckyBlue.  I have all the Brother files already downloaded.

I think this:

type    (in my case it was)
rpm -Uvh brhl2040lpr-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm
enter
then type
rpm -Uvh cupswrapperHL2040-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm
enter

is what I was needing.  I never thought about the cupswrapper, so guess now I need to go find the cupswrapper files for all three.

Still, it would be nice if they ended up in the default set sometime soon.

Thanks, and I'll let you know how it works out.  BTW, two are wireless, and the other one is ethernetted into the router.

[The Chief]

I hope this is of use to someone
cheers   

Certainly was to me.  Everything went fine.  All printers now installed and (apparently) working fine - haven't done much with them, except print test pages and a quick one page LibreOffice document I typed up to test with.  No test of duplexer, etc.

Of course, being that they are all network printers, I still had to deal with the fact each shows up 4 times in the list and having to manually sort out which is the proper one to select.  I used to just install all of them (renaming then  with a -1 through a -4) and after testing, delete the non working ones.   After much experimentation I think I have figured out that the one I want is the one that says "printer_model_pdl-datastream_tcp.local" as that seems to work for any of them.

Anyway, much thanks - I do believe cupswrapper was the key step I was missing.

At least Brother is Linux friendly - compared to some others.  The seem to have Linux drivers for all their printers.  And I love their hardware, too.   Built like a tank, and just keeps chugging along. 

I will now mark this SOLVED...