I'm fairly new to Linux; had to work through my first machine LM 19.3 with my Brother MFCJ-470DW and did.
Now LM 20.2; "Unable to locate printer"
Printer has been reliable on Win7; 10; LM19. USB conx. Went to Brother site to d/l drivers and followed instructions - twice.

Machine is flea market Dell Inspiron 570 AMD Athlon X2 project machine just for the learning experience. Installed new SSD; disconnected original HDD and went to bios to boot from usb; installed Mint 20.2 from flashdrive. Mint did the rest. Reset bios to default. This is not a dual boot. Using it now for web browsing and typing this message.
Other searches brought up issues with ippusbxd; I have searched with Synaptic and terminal and either I deleted it or it was not installed, but it's not on here now.
I've run troubleshooter and it's a blank. Time to make my first post in the linux world - thanks in advance!

Is the printer a network-connected device? Please run
Is the Brother printer enumerated in the output?

For a USB-connected printer start with disconnecting and re-connecting the USB cable and report back with output from

That may help us to advise further.

This thread from AskUbuntu may help.

Ok,
thanks for the replies- frankbell, I've tried as many variations of your suggested post as I can with no avail, including going back to the brother site. I've downloaded the installer now 3 times and tried running it, can't get it to happen. All d/l's are in the download file.

Ferrari, I must ask some real noob questions: some of the symbols you use in command lines are new to me. The straight vertical line between dmesg and tail - what is that?
And between sudo and pinfo there's another; like an upright Z; sort of. ???
Sorry to be so clueless, I should probably find a book on Linux for beginners.

I have unplugged the printer; it has been back and forth between my linux and win10 machine where it works fine.

It is a pipe operator used for interprocess communication - in this case to direct the output of dmesg to the tail command. It effectively presents the last few lines of the kernel ring buffer to the terminal. That's the output I'm interested in, as it should show if the printer is enumerated when first connected. I asked for that as a starting point, as it wasn't clear about how far you'd got through configuration, and this is an indicator of low-level USB-connectivity.

Some further reading for you...
https://www.guru99.com/linux-pipe-grep.html#1
https://linuxconcept.com/tutorial/lo...ipes-in-linux/

There's no shortcut, except by reading and doing. It takes time and effort, and I'm still learning 20 years later. Not sure what you meant by the upright z. The 'lpinfo' command is used to show available printer devices (as reported by CUPS), even before configuration is undertaken.

I assume you actually meant 'Downloads' directory?

This command will show what is contained in the user's Downloads directory...
The '~/' part is shorthand for the current user's home folder. So, for user Fred (as an example), it expands to /home/Fred/.

You can change to the Downloads directory with
then ensure installer file (often a script) can be executed with
substitute '<name_of_installer_file>' with exact case-correct name of actual file.

Then run it (with admin privileges using sudo). For example...
If all goes well, it should take care of the printer configuration for you. You can verify this to us by using the lpstat command. It will report the configured printer and it's status
Yes, lots of terminal commands, but the most effective means to convey configuration steps and confirm important system information to us, and further advise if needed.

The MFC-J470DW likely has a 32-bit only driver. Try adding 32-bit library support on your PC.

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Yes, as allend suggests, many of the older Brother drivers are 32-bit, and require 32-bit library support.

https://www.xmodulo.com/install-brot...ter-linux.html

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Many thanks for patient replies and links for further reading - those look good.
I found this site
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspo...-printers.html

and followed instructions and the printer is working.
Also here are instructions for enabling the scanner but had no success with that one. I can get by without scanner if necessary.

Ferrari, your input is much appreciated -I'm only just learning how much I need to learn! But that is part of the reason for going Linux. Glad to be doing this.
Regards!

It has been reported that some Brother devices with scanning capability have the default scanning mode set to “24bit Color[Fast]” and that this mode is not compatible with Linux. Set your scanning software (e.g. xsane) to use “24bit Color” as the default scanning mode.
Certainly true for my MFC-J825DW.