I would like to use my Brohter HL 2030 printer but I don't know how to install it. I don't have some Brother pritner driver, but lpr and gnome-cups are installed.

I need step by step instructions how to set up the printer and how to print, especially from command line, i would like to print some man pages.

I am running Gnome.

One more thing. I am running Debian as virtual system in Windows. I am using vmware workstation 5. Usb device is detected.

I am new user of the Debian system and any help is appreciated.

Command line control on printing has not much to do with GNOME (or KDE). Here are the steps which I followed, without having X on my Debian.
1) Make clear about cups package and its "relatives" using # aptitude search cupsys, followed by # aptitude show packages, with suitable packages provided by # aptitude search cupsys.
2) Choose and install chosen packages with # aptitude install packages. As far as I know, Debian cups printing package requires uninstalling lpr.
3) Some SAMBA components will also be installed (automatically).
4) Make sure about printing hardware support5) Make sure about printing software support for your printerand choose a suitable driver /usr/share/cups/model/path_to_your_choice.
6) Choose your_printer_name to your printer, chose the_port to connect your printer and set the printer into the system7) Test the installation8) Ask about your printer status9) Set your printer as default10) Connect your printer and print a test pageGood luck!

I have successfully installed cupsys but I don't have suitable printer driver. What to do now?

Problem solved.

I found linux driver on Brother's website for my printer and it is working.

What does it mean cupswrapper? I have also download some file which name is "cupswrapperhl2030_1.0.0-1_i386.deb" , so I am wondering what is the function of it.

Information about Debian packages can be obtained at command line and where you think that pattern is a relevant part in the name of the package you are searching for.

You can always try installing the driver that is on the brother cd. It is of type ppd, normally this will allow you to use the printer under linux.

Zoffman,

The Brother website says "The CUPS wrapper driver makes LPR drivers work with CUPS."

I'm curious what steps you actually took to get your printer to work.

Did you install the LPR driver before installing the CUPS wrapper driver as they warn you to do?

How's the printer working?

Best regards,
Steve

I didn't installed lpr, I think it was already installed.

I have installed cupsys as grautu instructed, and than I installed driver for Debian from

http://solutions.brother.com/linux/s...r_drivers.html


I don't remember that I installed som CUPS wrapper from Brother's website.

My Debian i running as Virtual machine inside the vmware Workstation

Printer is working, that's all. I can print man pages and from Open Office.

I was so happy that printer worked att all, but when you print man pages you get letters on the left side as:

"....but the latter are mor
e
efficient. So,....."

It drops the last letter of the last word in the line , than put that letter in the next line and then to print the following line.

Does anybody knows how to format man pages so they have less columns?

I'm not very confident that my advice (to follow) is the right solution; please anybody else either correct me or improve my advice, if the case!
Most likely the format of manual pages is not suited for immediate printing. Here are some ideas to try in this respect.
(1) Try to open the file of manual pages with another (advanced) editting application which can print and then resave the original file in the native format of that application (however, take care not to lose the manual file!); then try to print the resaved file. Such an application could be the word editor in Open Office. Another example would be 'texinfo' but this way seems to be far more complicated than the previous one.
(2) One cannot exclude a direct solution, though not plausible in my opinion. That is to try a "fine tuning" of printable area, by the parameters of lp command (see <http://www.cups.org/doc-1.1/sum.html>).
Once again, please anybody correct me if the case!

I've got the confirmation that my belief was right, in that the manual pages are not printing-ready; type the commandto see how man pages can be formated for printing. I'm still believing that advanced applications such as OpenOffice Word can also solve the problem; however I cannot be sure since not having installed X on my Debian.

You were faster than me.

The right syntax for formating and printing is:

man -t "your manualpage" | lp

And it is very nice formated page when printed on the paper. Thanks for your advices.

If you want to write:

man fdisk > printfile.txt

and open printfile.txt in OpenOffice than you get strange characters and double letter like fffddisskk in the opened document, it is not working that way.

Anyway thanks a lot, at least I have learned something about printers connected to the linux box.

Hi!
Glad to know your problem is solved; thanks for announcing that!
Good luck!

If you want to save a man page as a text file, you can do this instead:

man fdisk | col -b > printfile.txt