HOWTO: Install Brother MFC210C

[ubu69]

Thank you for the hand-holding. With a combination of your tutorial and Brother's instructions, I was able to set up my new printer (MFC420CN). While I'm using straight Debian, the steps were the same.

I figured out how to get the printer to just be on the network (not attached to a print server). This will only work with models that have a built-in ethernet port (perhaps this howto should be expanded to cover installing Brother drivers in a general sense).

-To start, you'll need to know the IP address of the printer. The printer can tell you this (check out the instruction booklet as the command combinations may be different for different models.)

-Follow the previous instructions given in this thread. -Open your browser to CUPS <http://localhost:631/>. Click "Manage Printers." You may have to have root powers to accomplish this.

-If everything went well, you should see your printer in the list.

-Select "Modify Printer." The important step is to select the device for the printer. Choose "LPD/LPR Host or Printer."

-In the next step you enter lpd://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx in the window (where the xxx's are the printer's IP address).

-Send it a test page. You can configure paper size from CUPS (it seems to default to A4).

-From here you can set your print manager to use CUPS if you so desire and it will also print on the network.

If these instructions aren't clear, I'll do my best to clear them up. It's late and I stayed up most of the night trying to figure this out.

[BobSongs]

Thank you for the hand-holding.

Alright! Don't forget to rate the thread.

If these instructions aren't clear, I'll do my best to clear them up. It's late and I stayed up most of the night trying to figure this out.

Feel free to clean up the tutorial and add it for our "pure" Debian buddies, ubu69. Of course, take the time to recover. Model it after my tutorial and this thread'll rate 6 stars on 5.

[Lunixfanboy]

And now, for the scanner portion of the MFC210C.

1. Go to http://solutions.brother.com/linux/s...e_drivers.html to obtain the sane scanner backend. You will need the brscan2 .deb package. Save same into directory of your choice (Downloads on my machine).

2. Open terminal, cd into directory containing brscan2 .deb package.

3. sudo dpkg -i brscan2-0.0.1-0.i386.deb

4. cd /etc/hotplug/usb

5. sudo vi libsane.scannermap

6. Look for one of the two lines containing Brother (which look like this: # Brother|MFC 5100C). This will be followed by a line which reads libusbscanner 0x0003 0x04f9 0x1029 followed by more hexadecimal values. We are only interested in the second and third ones {the ones right after the 0x0003}. Change the 0x1029 to read 0x0161.

7. Save and exit vi.

8. Run sane-find-scanner | grep usb. It should report found USB scanner (vendor=0x04f9, product=0x0161) at libusb:001:002 (the values after libusb might be different, depending upon where in your USB chain you have the scanner connected.)

9. Open Xsane and scan to your hearts' content.

[massong]

Hi, first off - thank you, this is an excellent guide.

I am however running into a small problem at this step:

sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/mfc210c/mfc210clpr-1.0.2-1.i386.deb

I have followed all other steps to the letter as far as I can tell, when I run the above command I get the following output:

(Reading database ... 74840 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace cupswrappermfc210c 1.0.0-1 (using .../cupswrappermfc210c_1.0.0-1_i386.deb) ...
lpadmin: Unable to connect to server: Connection refused
 * Restarting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd                         [ ok ]
Unpacking replacement cupswrappermfc210c ...
Setting up cupswrappermfc210c (1.0.0-1) ...
rm -f /usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperMFC210C
 * Restarting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd                         [ ok ]
lpadmin: Unable to connect to server: Connection refused

Incidentally, when I try to go to System / Administration / Printer I also get the error "The CUPS Server could not be contacted"

So, it seems I the CUPS server is not running, however I am not sure how to start it, if that is indeed that problem.

Any help would be appreciated

Gary

PS: ubuntu ROCKS!!!

[massong]

Before I actually tried to add my printer through system / administration / printing I edited the client.conf file as indicated in your email below (sudo gedit /etc/cups/client.conf) and placed the ServerName as the name of the remote PC with my MFC210 on it.

Doing this ; that computer isn't running a CUPS Server and that's why I was getting my error.

I misread your message originally Bob, re-reading this now I understand I would edit this file if my Brother MFC210 was locally attached to my linux box and I wanted to share it on the network, which is not the case.

After I commented the ServerName line back out, I was able to run the System/Administration/Printing command and add my network printer with zero problems.

I printed out a quick test page and it looks perfect. Have I mentioned that ubunut rocks? I've never been able to accomplish so much with any other linux Distrobution, I'm dang near ready to make the switch!!!

Gary

Depends on how old each printer is. Before buying equipment for your machines you may wish to investigate whether they are Linux friendly. In my mind running Ubuntu is a bit like running a Mac in terms of what I buy.

My Logitech Clicksmart 820 completely locks my PC when I try to do anything more than copy out the photos. Same with the MFC210C's scanner features. But I bought them before doing any investigation. At that time I wasn't as committed to Linux as I am now.

In future I'll be much more careful. If it isn't very Linux compatible... I'll keep hunting.

Meanwhile, have you tried this on the Ubuntu box?

[BobSongs]

<snip>I printed out a quick test page and it looks perfect. Have I mentioned that Ubuntu rocks? I've never been able to accomplish so much with any other linux Distrobution, I'm dang near ready to make the switch!!!</snip>

As a PC repair person I have begun to direct my customers to Ubuntu. I give them a level deal. It's not perfect. But just as there are trade-offs in Ubuntu, there are trade-offs in XP. Let's not kid ourselves. Climb on board, even if it's your 2nd O/S.

[BobSongs]

<snip>And now, for the scanner portion of the MFC210C.</snip>

Whoa! Excellent!! Giving it a try now. Many thanks for posting this. Job well done.

[BobSongs]

And now, for the scanner portion of the MFC210C.

Woot! It works! It works! Glory and thanks to God for sending you along to improve this tutorial.

I have added it to the main tutorial crediting you for your generous addition.

[crhooker]

BobSongs,

I have a Brother MFC3220C which is probably very close to your model. I have read your HowTo (excellent, thanks by the way) and would like to try it but before doing so I am hoping to make sure it does not mess up what I had already done.

Ubuntu found and correctly identified my model, the driver list however did not. I selected the one it reccomended and tried to print out a test page, the job queue recieved the job and apparently processed but nothing came out.

Should I perform the steps for your install after getting the right drivers for my printer (I actually think they are the same as I have gone to the Brother site but I am apparently not smart enough to understand what they are telling me to do - same thing with linuxprinting.org too)?

Thanks.

carl

[BobSongs]

Sorry I didn't get to your post sooner, Carl. Today's band practice day.

First, try using Google for the Brother Linux drivers. Brother will give instructions on how to install them. What I did was take their tutorial and try each step noting any errors. At one point the error stated a certain folder did not exist. So my instructions indicate the creation of a seemingly random folder. The setup then complained that it could not start/stop the 'cups' server. So when I looked in the folder I found a file named 'cupsys'. So I give instructions on creating a symbolic link to 'cupsys' named 'cups'. All worked fine.

You see: it was very, very basic. Careful noting of what went wrong followed by a tweak here or there that Ubuntu needed in particular. Once that was in place the install worked better and better until it reported no flaws.

I would encourage you to try the same. Download and try it out using Brother's somewhat flawed instructions. Tweak as you go and you'll be ready to create your own "How-To". If you liked my tutorial (yeah, yeah: lots of hand holding... but I'm not ashamed of gearing this for the absolute beginner ), please add one for your printer too.

I am no way a guru. Utter newbie. I've got lots of Win/DOS experience that is very helpful at times. But a careful perusal of my tutorial will show that it's as basic as you can get. No real radical moves there at all, other than the symbolic link, and I got help for that.