I have just installed a Brother MFC-425CN printer/scanner on my home LAN. It is used by both Windows and Linux machines, so I really would prefer to continue using DHCP for address assignment.

DHCP appears to reliably assign 192.168.1.2 to it, and I have hard-coded that address in the configuration on the linux box. However I suspect it may be subject to change.

The printer's Network Configuration Report gives:
<Ethernet Address> 00-80-77-76-02-b4
<Node Name> BRN_7602B4

Is it possible to address the printer with this information without knowing the IP address?

Also, while I can print from OOo 2.0 and print a test page from localhost/631, when I try to print from the GIMP 2.2 no errors are reported but nothing gets printed. Any clues?

The test page indicates CUPS 1.1, PostScript Level 3, and GNU Ghostscript were used.

Thanks
Jim

Does the printer have its own ethernet connection built in? If it does then ping it (192.168.1.2) and you should see the light blink. The "00-80-77-76-02-b4" seems to me is the hardware address of the ethernet card and it means the card was definitely recognized.

Yes, it does have ethernet built in. The ethernet address (aka mac address I think) is obtained directly from the printer.

I have located the printer at 192.168.1.2 by pinging, followed up with an nmap scan once I learned of it.

What I am hoping for is a way to access the printer on my local network *without* having to obtain its IP address first.

DHCP in the ADSL modem assigns the address. Is there a way to query it using the Node name?

Thanks
Jim

In a network environment some components (like the gateway, and network printers) must have a static addresses, so that if they are re-booted they do not get a different address breaking the network configuration.
Your printer should have a way to assign a static address, check the manual. Or, is there is a reason you want things setup this way?
If that is the case I guess you can set up the printer as locally connected using TCP and that will work.

Hope this helps.