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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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8
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6738
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12-03-2007
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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100% of reviewers
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$160.00
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9.9
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Description:
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This is a compact laser printer, up to 20ppm, 2400*600 dpi resolution, 8Mb (max 64MB) memory, USB 2.0 and parallel interface, 250 page paper cassette. It weighs about 6 kg and is not much larger than its paper tray with only 16 cm height to it. Can't hear it in standby and has a very acceptable noise level when printing after less than 10 seconds pre-heating. I use it in 600*600 dpi mode, the test page of CUPS (in particular the 360 lines at 1 degree) made me whistle with respect.
This is a GDI printer, thus a good choice for dual booters. Brother seems to have "seen the light" rather recently, so they are still building their Linux support, even advising too bookmark their http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/index.html site to check on their developments for Linux.
They have a two steps approach for the driver(s): first, one has to install a LPR(ng)-driver, second, a "wrapper-driver" for CUPS. Installing in SuSE: look at the hints in this thread http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=322679. Can be configured either from CUPS (be sure to enable the password for CUPS with lppasswd) or, even easier, from the KDE-Control-Center. Defaults to the USB-port.
One can get the sources of the drivers (but I didn't actually download them).
Attention: The "official" website at http://www.brother.com has links to the LPRng-drivers but not to the CUPS-wrapper-drivers and doesn't even mention them as of 05/18/2005. I suggest to go to the http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/index.html site, which has both.
I don't get the 1200*1200 dpi or 2400*600 resolutions offered in the printer(driver) menu(s) -- maybe the 8MB RAM are not enough, but since I don't need them...
This seems to be an upgraded HL 2030 with 20 instead of 16 pages ger minute my output and parallel plus USB port.
I can recommend this product, also because Brother seems to beginn to really support Linux.
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Keywords:
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printer laser brother
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Connection Type:
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Parallel, USB
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05-20-2005, 02:08 AM
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#1
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Registered: Apr 2003
Distribution: SuSE 10.0, SuSE 10.3, FreeBSD 6.0
Posts: 2,139
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Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: $188.00 | Rating: 10
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Kernel (uname -r):
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Distribution:
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SuSE 9.0pro
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[ Log in to get rid of this advertisement]
Btw. Brother answered a mail concerning the max resolution (1200*1200 and 2400*600). I include the pertinent part of their answer here:
"Es ist leider korrekt, der HL-2040 kann z.Zt. nur mit dem angebotenen Treiber max. 600 dpi drucken. Bei dem Treiber handelt es sich noch um einen Treiber der HL-5000 Serie. Wir werden diesen Zustand an unsere Softwareentwicklern weiterleiten, und hoffen bald Linux Treiber für die HL-2000 Serie anbieten zu können."
Which roughly translates to
It is regrettably correct that the HL-2040 can at this time and with the driver offered print only at max 600 dpi. The driver is one of the HL-5000 series of drivers. We will relay this condition to our software developers and hope to be able to offer Linux drivers for the HL-2000 series soon.
Those who need better resolutions should perhaps contact Brother also to get them moving. I suspect though that higher resolutions require more RAM which should be taken into the price considerations of prospective buyers...
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06-26-2005, 07:55 AM
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#2
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Registered: Jun 2005
Distribution: FC 4
Posts: 0
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Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: $163.00 | Rating: 10
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Kernel (uname -r):
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2.6
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Distribution:
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FC 4
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Install was easy and works well with FC4.
Unfortunately the rear power connector is ghetto grade and arcs with only the slightest disturbance, tried several different cords and the second replacement unit was no better either.
Otherwise an excellent and well priced printer for Linux, just make sure your fire insurance is up to date...
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06-27-2006, 10:52 PM
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#3
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Registered: Jun 2005
Distribution: SimplyMEPIS
Posts: 27
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Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 10
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Kernel (uname -r):
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2.6.10 - 2.6.15
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Distribution:
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Mepis
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I actually installed the printer without the official Brother drivers. Using the KDE Print Manager, I just ran through the "Add Printer Wizard". It did not have the 2040 listed as an option, but did have the next model up (2060) so I just chose that. I've never noticed any problems or flaws with the printer at all under Linux.
Interestingly, I did at one time install the official drivers (though I can't remember why). I do remember that with the official drivers, it was not printing correctly. IIRC, it was moving down the page about an extra 2 inches before it started printing, and so the bottom of the page was always cut off. I uninstalled and re-installed with the Printer Wizard and it's worked flawlessly since then.
This was about a year ago, so that may have been fixed in later releases of the drivers.
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09-12-2006, 03:31 PM
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#4
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Registered: Feb 2005
Distribution: FC 4 / Mepis 3.3.1
Posts: 15
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Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 9
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Kernel (uname -r):
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2.6.15-1-586tsc
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Distribution:
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Mepis 3.4
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I just used the "add printer" wizard and everything worked just fine. I have it connected to my Linux box by parallel port and my windoze box connected by USB so I can use both computers at the same time for printing to the one printer. No need for a print server or network connection to use both.
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01-06-2007, 01:00 AM
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#5
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Registered: Jan 2005
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 341
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Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 10
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Kernel (uname -r):
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2.6.17-rc6
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Distribution:
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Gentoo
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This printer was *amazingly* easy to setup. I told my dad I wanted a printer for Christmas, forgetting to research a nice printer for Linux, he brought back this printer and all I had to do was open up cups and it had already detected the printer and I hit "add printer." Thats seriously all that was to it, it took me under 2 minutes. I highly recommend it.
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03-29-2007, 04:26 PM
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#6
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Registered: Dec 2003
Distribution: Fedora 8, RHEL 3,4,5, Ubuntu 8.04
Posts: 213
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Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: $129.00 | Rating: 10
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Kernel (uname -r):
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2.6.10
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Distribution:
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Kubuntu
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Works wonderfully with cups installed. Automatic detection and configuration. I was printing the moment I booted to the desktop.
Excellent printer for the money (have yet to change the toner and it has been in use since october of 2006). I print between 1 and 10 pages a day.
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08-31-2007, 05:27 PM
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#7
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Registered: Aug 2007
Posts: 46
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Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 10
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Kernel (uname -r):
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2.6.21.5-smp
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Distribution:
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slackware 12.0
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When I first got this printer,
I tried to get it up and running with cups.I had no luck because after installing the brother driver, the printer won't want to talk.I had researched and posted with no luck.Then I asked on #slackware at freenode about anyone having issues with this printer.Seems like one person had a problem like me and he gave me some tips. What the problem was is that the printer keeps on going to sleep after a couple seconds and was stopping the driver from properly functioning.The fix was to use a windows machine with the brother software installed and turn off the auto-sleep function. Then I went back to linux, reinstalled the driver, and ran a test.Now after fixing the issue the printer works awesome.The text is crisp and didn't have to adjust anything after installing the driver.
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12-03-2007, 12:59 PM
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#8
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Registered: Nov 2002
Distribution: Mandrake 9.2 Mandriva 2008.1 Slackware 12.1 , Knoppix.
Posts: 1,955
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Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 10
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Kernel (uname -r):
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2.6.17-13mdv
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Distribution:
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Mandriva 2007 Spring
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I downloaded the driver from Brother and followed their instructions to install it. The printer has been working perfectly for 6 months now.
Print quality is satisfactory, crisp and clean. I have it shared to some windoze machines, and it works well from both OS's.
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