brother printer drivers installation

vonbiber · 10-06-2016, 01:59 PM

@FredGSanford

I'll have a look at the RPMs and let you know if I can come up with something.
I just downloaded the stuff for the printer.
The direct links are:
http://download.brother.com/welcome/...0.2-1.i386.rpm
http://download.brother.com/welcome/...0.0-1.i386.rpm

The page that lists all (including scanner, fax) is:
http://support.brother.com/g/b/downl...0cn_all&os=127

phenixia2003 · 10-07-2016, 04:00 AM

Hello,

Quote:

Originally Posted by joenew

but it is cut away on the left and right margins... May be a my mistake with margins options, I don't know which configuration option to check.

Maybe you can try to tweak the ImageableArea entries in the ppd as stated in this thread :

Code:

*ImageableArea Letter/Letter: "18 14.40 594 777.60"
*ImageableArea A4/A4: "18 14.40 577 827.60"
*ImageableArea Photo/Photo or 4x6 inch index card: "18 14.40 270 417.60"
*ImageableArea Photo5x7/Photo or 5x7 inch index card: "18 14.40 342 489.60"
*ImageableArea 3x5/3x5 inch index card: "18 14.40 198 345.60"
*ImageableArea 5x8/5x8 inch index card: "18 14.40 342 561.60"
*ImageableArea A3/A3: "18 14.40 824 1175.60"
*ImageableArea A5/A5: "18 14.40 402 580.60"
*ImageableArea A6/A6: "18 14.40 279 405.60"
...

The syntax used is as below :

Code:

*ImageablaArea <MEDIA>: "llx lly urx ury"

ll=lower left corner, ur=upper right corner

x,y are expressed in points (ie. 1/72 inch)

For instance, A4="18 14.40 577 827.60" => "0.25in 0.2in 8.013in 11.49in"

You can also use the command line tool alignmargins as stated in this post.

--
SeB

vonbiber · 10-07-2016, 07:16 AM

@FredGSanford

I should probably create a new thread for this.
Anyway, here's an attempt to package the drivers for a slackware system.

If you could:

Code:

1. uninstall the package you had before
2. build and install this one:
   a. download the files from the link below
   b. chmod +x brothermfc5440cn.SlackBuild
   c. (as root) ./brothermfc5540cn.SlackBuild
   d. open a web browser and go to "http://localhost:631"
      click on 'Adding Printers and Classes' (under CUPS for Administrators)
 ...

http://vonbiber.byethost17.com/slack...lds/mfc5440cn/

Good luck!

joenew · 10-07-2016, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phenixia2003

Maybe you can try to tweak the ImageableArea entries in the ppd

[...]

You can also use the command line tool alignmargins as stated in this post.

I think the issue doesn't regard driver instruction, but applications. For example, if I launch lp with some options more, it prints properly:

Code:

lp -o fit-to-page -o media=a4 file.pdf

I also tried to print from the pdf viewer of chromium and by setting "fit to page" option and it works fine.
In Okular instead, I can't find that.. I suspect the PDF source is larger than A4 sheet and if no fit option is specified, the lateral parts of printed page are cut away.

Anyway thankyou

joenew · 10-07-2016, 10:38 AM

I tested my brother by using the set of open drivers listed on openprinting site.
Since this topic is on brother proprietary drivers and how to create a slackware package for them, I thought to open a new topic in hardware section related to my brother model and some tests I've done:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...5-a-4175590963

Hope this is a good idea to keep this topic clean and focused on proprietary drivers slackbuilds

vonbiber · 10-12-2016, 04:52 PM

I have no idea whether brothermfc5440cn.SlackBuild worked or not.
Has anybody with a Brother MFC5440CN printer installed and tested
the package?

FredGSanford · 10-13-2016, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vonbiber

I have no idea whether brothermfc5440cn.SlackBuild worked or not.
Has anybody with a Brother MFC5440CN printer installed and tested
the package?

I tried it but still nothing will print. I give up for now.

balvinders · 10-16-2016, 01:26 AM

you can visit on URL REMOVED. if you need help. our experts are always ready to help your all kind of problem. just once visit

allend · 10-16-2016, 08:09 AM

Hmmm. http://brother.printersupportaustralia.net/ A web page with broken links, (sic)

Quote:

socail media

and

Quote:

Disclaimer

“We are independent technical service providers and have no association with the Brother Brand. Our mission is to resolve the tech problems faced by the Brother printer users. We operate by following strict International customer care compliance and guidelines.”

with no mention of Linux, let alone specifics for Slackware. I do not see this burning a hole in my pocket.

joenew · 10-17-2016, 02:18 PM

Hi all,
I'm still trying to understand how Brother drivers work for my HL-2035 printer.
The question I'm asking myself (and to you) is which files are really needed to make it working under CUPS?

As recap:
The old Brother .rpm (or .deb) packages were one for LPD and the other for CUPS (cupswrapper). They are related to HL-2030 model, very close to my HL-2035.
Now, I still can find them, but Brother releases also a "stand alone" cups-wrapper source package under GPLv2 license.

As shown by few posts above, the source package contains:

1. a C source code (with an headers file too): brcupsconfig3/brcupsconfig.c
What is the role of the executable generated by compiling it? What does it do exactly, is it really needed?

2. a shell script which just installs two other files "hard coded" through "here documents":

2a. A PPD file: /usr/share/cups/model/HL2030.ppd

2b. A CUPS filter to make the above PPD working under CUPS (If I well understood how CUPS manages its parts): /usr/lib64/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperHL2030

Could you help me to understand what those files are needed for?
And if they are enough to make the printer working, or if the old lpd filter is needed too?
I don't need LPD service, I use CUPS to manage the printer on my slack-14.2 system...

The idea could be: let's edit those script and source code to generate the right files as expected in a pure slackware file system. Then just create a slack txz to install them...

Hope my bad english has been enough clear to let you understand my questions, thanks again!

vonbiber · 10-18-2016, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joenew

Hi all,
I'm still trying to understand how Brother drivers work for my HL-2035 printer.
The question I'm asking myself (and to you) is which files are really needed to make it working under CUPS?

I've been asking myself the same question.
On my model (the HLL2300D printer) installation, here are the main files (and their types) installed
(I skipped the docs, links):

Code:

ELF 32-bit binaries:
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/lpd/brprintconflsr3
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/lpd/rawtobr3
perl script:
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/lpd/filter_HLL2300D
shell script:
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/inf/setupPrintcap
ascii text:
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/inf/brHLL2300Drc
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/inf/brHLL2300Dfunc
ELF 32-bit binary:
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/inf/braddprinter
perl script:
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/cupswrapper/paperconfigml1
ppd file (ASCII)
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/cupswrapper/brother-HLL2300D-cups-en.ppd
perl script:
usr/share/brother/Printers/HLL2300D/cupswrapper/brother_lpdwrapper_HLL2300D

On the other two printers (one successfully installed--the DCP7030, the other not--MFC5440CN),
there were also 32-bit binaries (libraries, executables) and shell scripts.

Quote:

The old Brother .rpm (or .deb) packages were one for LPD and the other for CUPS (cupswrapper). They are related to HL-2030 model, very close to my HL-2035.
Now, I still can find them, but Brother releases also a "stand alone" cups-wrapper source package under GPLv2 license.

As shown by few posts above, the source package contains:

1. a C source code (with an headers file too): brcupsconfig3/brcupsconfig.c
What is the role of the executable generated by compiling it? What does it do exactly, is it really needed?

2. a shell script which just installs two other files "hard coded" through "here documents":

2a. A PPD file: /usr/share/cups/model/HL2030.ppd

2b. A CUPS filter to make the above PPD working under CUPS (If I well understood how CUPS manages its parts): /usr/lib64/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperHL2030

The cups wrapper builds all right. But I didn't understand why Brother didn't provide the sources
for the lpd wrapper.

On my SlackBuilds I just extracted the contents of the ppd and the wrapper in the script and wrote it
directly to create these files.
The ppd file is essential: when you set up your printer with cups, you'll be asked for it.

Quote:

Could you help me to understand what those files are needed for?
And if they are enough to make the printer working, or if the old lpd filter is needed too?
I don't need LPD service, I use CUPS to manage the printer on my slack-14.2 system...

Perhaps if you want to experiment, try to remove (move to a temporary folder) some of the files
and see if it's still working...

kjhambrick · 10-18-2016, 05:00 AM

All --

I don't have any Brother Printers but a few of our Customers have various Models so I run into this once in a while on CentOS 6 Machines.

Since I have no HL-2035, I can't test anything.

That being said, here is my $0.02 worth

The Brother HL2035 Printer is a GDI Printer ( sometimes affectionately ( or not ) known as a WinPrinter )

There are reports that it Mostly Works for text printing at Open Printing Brother HL2035

Looking thru the scripts/ directory in the brother-laser-cups-driver-2.0.1-1.tar.gz 'Source Codes' at the Brother HL-2035 Driver Page ...

There no script for an HL-2035 but there is a setup script for the HL-2030: scripts/cupswrapperHL2030-2.0.1 which expects to find the compiled source ( brcupsconfig3/brcupsconfig.c ) in /usr/local/Brother/cupswrapper/brcupsconfig3

Code:

# grep 'brcupsconfig3' scripts/cupswrapperHL2030-2.0.1

  rm -f /usr/local/Brother/cupswrapper/brcupsconfig3
if [ -e "/usr/local/Brother/cupswrapper/brcupsconfig3" ]; then
     /usr/local/Brother/cupswrapper/brcupsconfig3  \$PRINTER  \$PPD 0 "\$options" >> /dev/null
     /usr/local/Brother/cupswrapper/brcupsconfig3  \$PRINTER  \$PPD \$LOGCLEVEL "\$options" >>\$LOGFILE

I was able to compile brcupsconfig3 in place:

Code:

gcc -o brcupsconfig3 brcupsconfig3.c && strip brcupsconfig

ls -la
total 64
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Oct 18 04:48 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root  4096 Apr 15  2007 ..
-r-xr--r-- 1 root root 13478 Apr 16  2007 brcups_commands.h
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 22384 Oct 18 04:48 brcupsconfig
-r-xr--r-- 1 root root 15640 Apr 16  2007 brcupsconfig.c

Maybe brcupsconfig needs to be compiled and then copied to /usr/local/Brother/cupswrapper/brcupsconfig3 and then scripts/cupswrapperHL2030-2.0.1 needs to be run to install the GDI Emulator for the HL-2035 ???

Last-but-not-least, there is an Open Printing Generic GDI Driver if nothing else works.

Finally, I tell our customers to stay away from GDI Printers which is probably the best solution.

HTH.

-- kjh

joenew · 10-18-2016, 06:00 AM

If we compare other CUPS drivers and their PPD files... for example foomatic "hl1250", it contains

Code:

*cupsFilter:    "application/vnd.cups-pdf 0 foomatic-rip"

The above line suggests to CUPS the filter to use. In this case "foomatic-rip" and CUPS looks for it in "/usr/lib$ARCH/cups/filter/" directory. Here we find the "foomatic-rip" filter file which is a binary executable.

Code:

file /usr/lib64/cups/filter/foomatic-rip
/usr/lib64/cups/filter/foomatic-rip: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, stripped

If we look at brother PPD file, we have:

Code:

*cupsFilter: "application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 brlpdwrapperHL2030"

So we have to put the filter "brlpdwrapperHL2030" in "/usr/lib$ARCH/cups/filter/".

The brother script cupwrapperHL2030-2.0.1 writes PPD file on the right file:

Code:

ppd_file_name=/usr/share/cups/model/HL2030.ppd

cat <<ENDOFPPDFILE >$ppd_file_name
*PPD-Adobe: "4.3"
*%================================================
*%      Copyright(C) 2006 Brother Industries, Ltd.
*%      "Brother HL2030 for CUPS"
*%================================================

*%==== General Information Keywords ========================
*FormatVersion: "4.3"
*FileVersion: "1.00"
*LanguageEncoding: ISOLatin1
*LanguageVersion: English
*Manufacturer: "Brother"
*PCFileName: "HL2030.PPD"
*Product: "(Brother HL2030 series)"
*cupsVersion:   1.1
*cupsManualCopies: True
*cupsModelNumber:       68
*cupsFilter: "application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 brlpdwrapperHL2030"

Moreover "cupswrapperHL2030-2.0.1" script contains an "here document" of our needed filter too and writes it exactly where CUPS expects to find it:

Code:

brotherlpdwrapper=/usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperHL2030
brotherlpdwrapper64=/usr/lib64/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperHL2030
rm -f  $brotherlpdwrapper


cat <<!ENDOFWFILTER! >$brotherlpdwrapper
#! /bin/sh
#
# Brother Print filter  >>  $brotherlpdwrapper
# Copyright (C) 2005 Brother. Industries, Ltd.
#                                    Ver1.00

So, also this time we still have a PPD file and the filter file it requires:

Code:

/usr/share/cups/model/HL2030.ppd

Code:

/usr/lib64/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperHL2030

However brother filter is a shell script, not an executable as for foomatic filter shown above.
So the question now is: what does brother filter do? Does it launch or require other files provided by brother packages?
Fortunately the filter is a bash script, so we can inspect its code and find the answer to the above question.

PS.
If that two files had been enough to make the printer work within cups, why we find also the C program "brcupsconfig3"? what is it for?

kjhambrick · 10-18-2016, 06:20 AM

joenew --

I don't think your comparisons hold because the HL-2035 is a GDI Printer ( see my post above ) but the HL-1250 is not: Brother HL-1250 Specs ( see Emulation ).

IOW, you can send PCL or Epson Print Jobs to the HL-1250 through foomatic which works very nicely.

But you've got to convert the print job to a raster image file for the HL-2035 which is definitely Make / Model Specific and often causes all kinds of grief on Linux of any kind ...

-- kjh

phenixia2003 · 10-18-2016, 06:52 AM

Hello,

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjhambrick

I don't think your comparisons hold because the HL-2035 is a GDI Printer ( see my post above ) but the HL-1250 is not: Brother HL-1250 Specs ( see Emulation ).

The HL-2035 is a GDI Printer which, surprisingly, supports PCL.

--
SeB