Translation(s): none

Brother printers and scanners in Debian

Contents

  1. Laser printers
    1. Additional printers
  2. MFC7440
    1. Summary
    2. Brother drivers
    3. USB modem/fax lpd driver
    4. Test via LAN and USB
    5. Upgrades
    6. Scanner
    7. Usage
    8. Troubleshooting
  3. DCP130C
  4. DCP-1510 with Brother Website Installer On Buster
  5. See also

Laser printers

Install the "printer-driver-brlaser" package for printing with:

Additional printers

The following printers can be used as well with the "printer-driver-brlaser" package. You need to manually assign this driver to the printer for it to work:

MFC7440

Installation of brother MFC 4in1 machines (print, copy, scan, fax) e.g. MFC-7440N, MFC-7840 MFC-7840W on 64-bit systems.

Special # dialcodes such as 31# are offered via the mechanical keys of the MFC device, but not while faxing from software. There may be workarounds using phone routers or modems to permanently suppress caller-ID, rather than on a call-by-call basis via 31# 

Summary

Running the 7840 and 7840W (W offers WLAN as well).

You only need an URI the above URI, .ppd file, and the proper driver installed. Replace 192.168.xxx.xxx with the real IP address of the Brother.

192.0.0.192 is the default IP address of a Brother print server - if the APIPA protocol is disabled via MFC LCD-panel menu.

Printer URI may be one of: 

lpd://192.168.xxx.xxx/BRFAX
printername : BRFAX
dnssd://Brother%20MFC-7440N._pdl-datastream._tcp.local/
usb://Brother/MFC-7440N?serial=000333333333

Then find your printer at http://localhost:631/printers/BRFAX

Refer to /usr/share/cups/model/brfax_cups.ppd file manually when adding printers via KDE sys-set GUI and use above manual URI:

Access the Brother setup from a web browser at http://192.168.xxx.xxx (user:admin, password:access)

Brother drivers

It's recommended to print out the MFC configuration or network setup via the "report" (local language may differ) button on the LCD panel of the Bro first, to make sure your LAN is set up OK.

Download all drivers from the official Brother link below. Scan & print install works pretty flawlessly. Install .deb packages manuall using dpkg -i or similar. 

sudo ./setupSaneScan1
# OR setupSaneScan2, 3, 4... depending on your MFC model

# verify the install
dpkg -l | grep Brother

The installer (linux-brprinter-installer-2.0.0-1) will download (if a debian system is detected) :

and provide uninstaller_MFC7440N, uninstaller_brscan3 , uninstaller_brscan-skey script files in the directory from where it was started.

The installer will tell you that it ran lpadmin -p MFC7440N -v socket://192.168.100.101 -E and brsaneconfig3 -a name=MFC-7440N model=MFC-7440N ip=192.168.100.101

Files provided by Brother packages:

[ATTACH]

USB modem/fax lpd driver

http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux/en/instruction_fmd3.html about the SPIN_LOCK_UNLOCKED bug.

Faxmodem install requires a little attention (as of 3/2015, may improve later. till today, bro has not yet found the time to repack their .deb file). Basically one must follow bro instructions. Still one may be required to unpack the modem .deb manually and copy all files and run all scripts manually. Also one might be left with manually adding a new lpd printer named BRFAX as described above. The brusbmfc.c code must be altered as instructed by bro as root, run make asf. (Step 6. : Open the following file using a text editor with the "sudo" command. /opt/brother/modem/src/brusbmfc.c Change the 174th line as follows:

also a libusb run time error may occur - to remedy, install via synaptic pack manager the dev and debug versions of libusb (the more the merrier, hard to pinpoint which particular pack was missing). That's all the errors I got, but your mileage may vary.

Test via LAN and USB

efax-gtk should give you something like: 

efax-0.9a: 18:26:59 opened /dev/brusbmfc
efax-0.9a: 18:27:11 using OKBROTHER8C5-C45 in class 2
efax-0.9a: 18:27:13 dialing T*31#032999999
efax-0.9a: 18:27:31 The remote ID is "+4932999999"
efax-0.9a: 18:27:31 connected
efax-0.9a: 18:27:39 session 196lpi 14.4kbps 8.5"/215mm  any   1D    -     -  0ms
efax-0.9a: 18:27:39 header:[2015-02-28 18:26    Mr. Smith (+49407777777) --> *31#032999999      1/1]
efax-0.9a: 18:27:43 Warning: EOF before RTC
efax-0.9a: 18:27:47 sent 20+2291 lines and 9302+0 bytes, in 8 secs at 9302 bps
efax-0.9a: 18:27:51 failed page /home/you/faxout/tf2.pdf.001
efax-0.9a: 18:27:53 finished - success

As of 2015, the regular (mint 17.2 auto suggested) gfax via efax does not work any longer, since the AT commandset of efax grew incompatible (software rot). Having /usr/bin/brpcfax going inside Open/Libre Office is the better way to fax anyhow (proper logging via bro debuglevel 4).

Upgrades

A module make & make install is necessary after every kernel upgrade.

Firmware updates are apparently only doable from Windows.

Scanner

If you run the scanner installer (linux-brprinter-installer-2.0.0-1.gz), you will be asked to type in the model name MFC-7440N and the printer's IP address (depends on your net setup) (same address where the MFC's web interface).

Running brsaneconfig3 is required, else xsane will tell you that 'it cannot connect to the brother scanner'.

Usage

Use CUPS to print and XSane or another scanning tool to scan.

Some fax commands: 

brpcfax -o fax-number=032999999999 ~/faxout/tf.ps
brpcfax -o fax-broadcast=/home/user1/list.txt testprint.ps
/usr/bin/brpcfax -P BRFAX -o Paper=A4  ...

Troubleshooting

* As of 2015, often the fax install puts BRFAX on usb:/dev/usb/lp0, while in fact lp1 is what shows after plugging the browser via USB. Change that to usb://Brother/MFC-7440N?serial=000111111111 (autodetect your serial via cups printer setup) and you willa have a working brpcfax

USB: Fax out via "OpenOffice writer" requires the USB cable connected (MFC acts as a USB telephone modem). Print, Copy, Scan do not require a USB connection, but can be done via network instead. If you want everything (COPY, FAX, SCAN, PRINT) and use a single cable only, plug in the USB cable and omit the network cable.

Linux Mint ships with some brother postscript drivers (foomatic, BR3), but they do not fully work on the 7440N. Mint also ships with drivers for model number 7450 which will give you lots of white paper sheets. You actually need a downloaded brother driver file such as cupswrapperMFC7440N-2.0.2-1.i386.deb and have the original MFC7440N.ppd file. Accept no substitute.

It is also worth noting that the all-important MFC7440N.ppd file cannot be simply extracted from the bro driver archive .gz files. Instead some script will generate it via hexdump. To do that manually, find the part in the script with the hexdump. After regular install via bro script, keep a copy of the special file MFC7440N.ppd from /etc/cups/ppd or /usr/share/ppd or /opt/brother/... or /usr/share/cups/model/ .

DCP130C

cp /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother2.so.1.0.7 /usr/lib/sane
cp /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother2.so.1 /usr/lib/sane
cp /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother2.so /usr/lib/sane
cp /usr/lib64/libbrcolm2.so.1.0.1 /usr/lib
cp /usr/lib64/libbrcolm2.so /usr/lib
cp /usr/lib64/libbrscandec2.so.1 /usr/lib
cp /usr/lib64/libbrscandec2.so /usr/lib
cp /usr/lib64/libbrcolm2.so.1 /usr/lib
/etc/init.d/udev restart

DCP-1510 with Brother Website Installer On Buster

For Buster (Debian 10), applying the instructions on the Brother webpage, and running 

bash linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.2-1 DCP-1510

installs: 

   dcp1510lpr-3.0.1-1.i386.deb
   dcp1510cupswrapper-3.0.1-1.i386.deb
   brscan4-0.4.9-1.amd64.deb
   brscan-skey-0.3.1-1.amd64.deb

Gimp works with the scanner using the clickpath: File->Create-XSane->Device dialog->Scan

See also

CategoryPrinter | CategoryScanner | CategoryHardware