HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

[rogerb1583]

I give up. I have wasted a couple of hours trying to get my Brother 6490CW driver stalled. I have not felt this stupid since DOS. I am going to buy an HP printer. At least they support Ubuntu Linux.

El Stupido

[jfbooth]

XUBUNTU 11.10. NETWORKED MFC-7440N PRINTER/SCANNER

Used to work .. but stopped printing/scanning at some unknown point, possibly when I upgraded from 11.04.

I have managed to get it printing again, but after reading this entire thread and trying 'everything' I could .. I now need help getting it to scan.

When I run XSANE I get an error window:

Failed to open device 'brother3:net 1;dev0': Invalid argument

jb@Compaq:~$ dpkg  -l  |  grep  Brother
ii  brmfc7440nlpr                          2.0.2-1
   Brother MFC-7440N LPR driver
ii  brscan-skey                            0.2.1-3
   Brother Linux scanner S-KEY tool
ii  brscan3                                0.2.11-4
   Brother Scanner Driver
ii  cupswrappermfc7440n                    2.0.2-1
   Brother MFC7440N CUPS wrapper driver
ii  ptouch-driver                          1.3-0ubuntu11
   CUPS/Foomatic driver for Brother P-touch label printers
jb@Compaq:~$

Not sure what else to say. I have read and complied with BROTHER FAQ tips, and tried most of the advice given in this thread. Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me out.

[YMS_1975]

I give up. I have wasted a couple of hours trying to get my Brother 6490CW driver stalled. I have not felt this stupid since DOS. I am going to buy an HP printer. At least they support Ubuntu Linux.

El Stupido

You're not stupid.

This is quite tricky! LOL. I've been fiddling around with an MFC-465CN.

I downloaded the drivers from Brothers website, then I read that it was already in the repositories so there was no need to do that.
Then I uninstalled everything, and reinstalled from the repositories....STILL NO LUCK.

So you're definitely not alone (or stupid).

[jfbooth]

I give up. I have wasted a couple of hours trying to get my Brother 6490CW driver stalled. I have not felt this stupid since DOS. I am going to buy an HP printer. At least they support Ubuntu Linux.

El Stupido

No .. you are not stupid. I spent almost a month just getting my printer to work .. and .. AND .. I am not sure what I did to fix it .. but it works!! Now .. the scanner .. hopefully, much sooner.

This thread .. many, many compliments to it .. and it deserves compliments .. BUT it is REALLY outdated .. and is no longer a tutorial .. it is a 30 pg monster of redundant and outdated material. There must be 10 replies that recommend editing 40-libsanerules or whatever it's called .. and it is not there.

I don't mean to beat on this thread .. it is just way outdated is all.

[YMS_1975]

No .. you are not stupid. I spent almost a month just getting my printer to work .. and .. AND .. I am not sure what I did to fix it .. but it works!! Now .. the scanner .. hopefully, much sooner.

This thread .. many, many compliments to it .. and it deserves compliments .. BUT it is REALLY outdated .. and is no longer a tutorial .. it is a 30 pg monster of redundant and outdated material. There must be 10 replies that recommend editing 40-libsanerules or whatever it's called .. and it is not there.

I don't mean to beat on this thread .. it is just way outdated is all.

Agreed (to a certain point).

I think what we should do, is dedicate a hardware section and break it down by peripheral brand name, model # & Ubuntu version compatibility (if such a section does not exist already).

And if it does exist.....then....we should be looking there!

[jfbooth]

I downloaded the drivers from Brothers website, then I read that it was already in the repositories so there was no need to do that.
Then I uninstalled everything, and reinstalled from the repositories....STILL NO LUCK.

So you're definitely not alone (or stupid).

Yeah .. I read that too, but I also read that those in the repositories only apply to certain models .. so I used the specified drivers from Brother's website. If you are using the repository packages .. they STILL may not be right for your model printer.

[jfbooth]

I think what we should do, is dedicate a hardware section and break it down by peripheral brand name, model # & Ubuntu version compatibility (if such a section does not exist already).

And if it does exist.....then....we should be looking there!

There certainly is a hardware section of this Forum .. but to my knowledge there is nothing there in particular about Brother Printers. Maybe .. but this 'tutorial' is about the best thing I have found .. as lacking as it is.

I think TUTORIALS should be locked to replies. That right there would reduce this one to a few posts .. all by the author of the tutorial. Instead of 30 pages ..it could be cut down to one. The author could edit/add to/expand the tutorial and keep it updated. The feedback to the tutorial could be done in another thread. What took me the longest and I still did not find the answer, was going through this entire thread ... all that 'input' is outdated, redundant, mistaken, misleading, and time consuming.

[exsencon]

Just my 2 cents. I just bought a Brother 195C all in one (the lights went out on my Canon Pixma MP520)and installed it on my WinXP desktop. Then I went about getting it to work on my Ubuntu 10.10 laptop over my home wireless connection. Went to the Brother website to get the Linux drivers for my 195C-no sweat. Just put in the IP of my desktop and I could print wirelessly from my Ubuntu laptop to my WinXP desktop that's connected to my new Brother with USB and of course shared printer. Great stuff!
See about the scanner later. Very good feeling about Brother and Linux!

[jfbooth]

Great stuff!

I am sincerely glad you had so little trouble. This is a 'good' tutorial .. if you are connected USB. It only covers NETWORK connected through the evolution of replies .. so in that respect, it is a good tutorial .. but fails miserably for a networked Brother 'device' .. at this point.

[exsencon]

I am sincerely glad you had so little trouble. This is a 'good' tutorial .. if you are connected USB. It only covers NETWORK connected through the evolution of replies .. so in that respect, it is a good tutorial .. but fails miserably for a networked Brother 'device' .. at this point.

jfbooth
I understand your problem which is quite different of mine.I am in a home situation with two PC's(Desktop-Laptop).Laptop is connected wireless to my Linksys router with the Desktop and the internet and that's it.
Now,on my laptop I have WinXP and Ubuntu 10.10, on my Desktop I have WinXP on one HD and 12 Linux OS and Solaris and PCBSD on the second HD. So right now I am getting all those Linux OS's to work with my new Brother DCP195C. I am about half way and still going strong! I'll leave Solaris and PCBSD for last because they are tricky ones. But so far,so good.
I am still hoping printer manufacturers give the same treatment to Linux users as they do for Win users!