Network Printer with LPR and Brother (vendor) LPR driver

doblebo

Hi all
Long time lurker, first time poster..

ok i'm hurting for a solution here..
my network printer does not seem to be able to use cups for some reason..
i think it is because of the lack of driver support. the exact make and model of my printer is:

Brother MFC420CN
the vendor website actually does support network printing under linux, however, it does not support it under cups.(?)
http://solutions.brother.com/Library/sol/printer/linux/lpr_drivers.html
i found the driver at that link and used rpm2targz and installed the drivers and even edited the printcap properly, however, i cannot get cups to use it.
the directions on the vendor website say that after you edit the /etc/printcap
you must restart lpd with /etc/init.d/lpd restart. however... i cannot find the lpd service on my system. can anyone help me with this? how can i get lpd ?
here is my printcap (which cups keeps overwriting)

MFC420CN:\
:mx=0:\
:sd=/var/spool/lpd/MFC420CN:\
:sh:\
:rm=192.168.1.25\
:rp=lp\
:if=/usr/local/Brother/lpd/filterMFC420CN:

i tried samba, i tried lprng, i tried cups.. no luck
i can ping the printer, i can log into it with telnet and ftp. the printer works on other computers on the network (non-linux).
the problem is.. i cannot print to it.
using cups, the furthest i've been able to get was printing with the "raw" mode type. the printer does not support "raw" printing, so all i got when attempting a test pring was "receiving data" on the printer, but never would it print.
cups website does not show that this printer is supported (maybe the printer is too new, i just got it the other day).

thank you in advance!

doblebo · Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 7:37 pm Post subject:

http://solutions.brother.com/linux/

here, the vendor site is telling me that

doblebo · Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 9:19 pm Post subject:

i emailed ESP (makers of ESP Print Pro) and they say there is NO cups driver for this printer.
per review of the .inf files for the windows drivers, i see that the would-be-driver is compatible with the following printers:
MFC-210C, MFC-410CN, MFC-420CN, MFC-620CN, MFC-610CL(W)N, MFC-620CLN, DCP-110C, DCP-310CN, FAX-2440C, MFC-3240C, MFC-3340CN, FAX-1835C, FAX-1840C, FAX-1940CN, MFC-5440CN, MFC-5840CN

of course, none of these printers have drivers either :twisted:

i have also found in the .inf file that the ppd file i would be looking for is called
BRMF420C.PPD
i have searched from all of my computers to the moon and could not find this file.

guess i'll just have to wait until cups releases a driver

doblebo · Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:43 pm Post subject:

okay so i found the ppd file on a windows computer and i put it in the /usr/share/cups/model/ directory and restarted cups and cups isnt giving me that printer as an option for the driver in the cups-admin damnit..

edit: got a response from ESP again and they say this printer is not a postscript printer and that ppd file is not a valid ppd file.. so.... now i need to figure out how to use this printer. ANY suggestions?

billium · Apprentice Joined: 22 Mar 2003 Posts: 185

hello doblebo

I've a feeling this may be a brain damaged gdi printer .. hence Brother's reluctance to support it in Linux. :roll:

I have a Brother HL2700CN network printer that came with full instructions on how to operate in Linux and a ppd for cups, it works very well.

Billy

doblebo · Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:30 am Post subject:

FastTurtle · Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 12:10 am Post subject:

I've got the same unit and what the problem appears to be is that it needs the lprng spool instead of cups.

I'm currently having a problem getting lprng to build correctly as I'm running gcc-4.1 instead of 3.4.5 so having to move up to 3.8.28 as final attempt.

I'll state this: both the fax and scanner drivers installed correctly and are working. The last thing to do is get the printer actually printing.

billium
It's actually not a brain damaged Windows GDI printer as they actually can use a PPD file with Cups. Samsung is a good example of that. The issue is the fact that their solution is mainly geared towards RedHat's configuration, where they use LPR by default and not cups.

Update
Rebuilt system and can't see fax in cups but using the LPD driver, cups can now see the damn printer. Turns out that the cupswrapper is for the Brother Control Center that gives a Windows centric control of the printer. Nice but right now I'm more interested in getting the blasted thing printing.

soldstatic · Guru Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 305

ok i got the printer installed according to https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3375512.html#3375512 but it doesnt work... i'm trying to do it over the network so i edited that thing like you did to have rm and rm=lp blah blah, but yea still no printed papers comin out...

soldstatic · Guru Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 305