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Only problem with Brother on Linux seems that they do bot distribute drivers in source code but a binary-only Debian package. So, while they seem to have a good
by jnxx 6y ago
Only problem with Brother on Linux seems that they do bot distribute drivers in source code but a binary-only Debian package. So, while they seem to have a good reputation for Linux support, there is still lots of room for improvement.
Ah, and also on the newwer Brother printers one has to do a complicated configuration menu dance to get rid of "Toner cartridge empty" warnings, in order to do a "Toner Reset", which lets one continue to use a half-empty cartridge. Some kind of fools' tax, it seems.
- floatingatoll 6y agoWhy do you need a driver? I thought basically every 2020 printer - and CUPS - supported AirPrint.
- Spivak 6y agoAnd basically every printer natively supports PostScript and PCL which are "almost generic" but can come with a ppd file that has your printers specific options and error codes. And I'm seeing lots of printers come with native PDF/DVI support which is nice.
- numpad0 6y agoFor features other than printing A4 business documents in Fast quality? Photos, CD-R, model making decals etc often require proprietary Windows drivers to do right. For printing academic research papers in reverse page order to hand staple and read, indeed you don’t need drivers.
- adrianmonk 6y agoThanks. This is useful info. Brother's site says my printer does support AirPrint. And through the printer's internal web server, I can see under Network -> Protocol that AirPrint is there and enabled. I have the binary blob driver installed, so I guess this explains why two entries appear for this printer under Printer settings in Ubuntu. So, a minor mystery is solved, and I now see that I have the option of removing this driver.
- floatingatoll 6y agoAh! Yay!
- dn3500 6y agoI just last week got a new Brother printer and went through the process of installing the proprietary driver, which for some reason requires the 32 bit version of libc. I had ignored the "Airprint" option because I assumed it had something to do with wireless printing. Apparently it did originally, but now it has more to do with driverless printing. So yes, thank you.
- pkaye 6y agoI have a Brother MFC printer on my network and my Ubuntu has it popping up automatically after install. No drivers were needed. Installing on Windows takes more work.
- tinus_hn 6y agoIs there Linux support for printing to AirPrint printers though?
- Unklejoe 6y agoI never had to install any drivers. It all just worked. To be honest, I have no idea how. It just shows up as a network printer.
- thescriptkiddie 6y agoI have an older model brother, but it requires no drivers on Linux. You just set it up as a generic postscript compatible printer in CUPS.
- yrro 6y agoRecent printers feature 'IPP Everywhere' which are 'driverless'. Brother's proprietary garbage driver is not needed for their older printers; there's a reverse-engineered 'brlaser' driver that you can use instead.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]