Edgy Howto: Brother Printer MFC-215c complete

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

Great howto.

Brother DCP-540CN

Following the instructions helped me easily setup my new Brother DCP-540CN Network Printer/Scanner for Ubuntu Edgy (Gnome). The device sits on the network and serves a mix of Linux and Windows PCs. The installation for linux was completed without the need to connect via usb. Detailed below is the routine for the DCP-540CN for NETWORK cobbled together from the brother website FAQ, this post, and what I had to change.

NOTE: This howto now tested and working for GUTSY 7.10 and drivers updated to latest versions

Prep
Download all the necessary drivers from the Brother site

http://solutions.brother.com/Library/sol/printer/linux/rpmfiles/lpr_others/dcp540cnlpr-1.0.0-9.i386.deb

http://solutions.brother.com/Library/sol/printer/linux/rpmfiles/cups_wrapper/dcp540cncupswrapper-1.0.0-10.i386.deb

http://solutions.brother.com/Library/sol/printer/linux/rpmfiles/sane_debian/brscan2-0.2.4-0.i386.deb

Use Synaptic to install csh (C Shell) and sane/xsane from the repositories (not needed for Gutsy as Xsane installed by default)

sudo aptitude install csh sane xsane # not needed for Gutsy

Create a new directory in /var/spool/lpd (Edgy needs lpd directory which is not present)

sudo mkdir /var/spool/lpd

(Edgy/Gutsy uses CUPS and file wants CUPSYS – link)

sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/cupsys /etc/init.d/cups

SWITCH OFF THE PRINTER (This seems to be the most important point that caused failure on installation previously, I will tell Brother about this!)SWITCH OFF THE PRINTER

Installation

Is your printer switched off?

Using Gdebi Installer or command line, install the lpr and wrapper packages in this order (important!)

sudo dpkg -i --force-all dcp540cnlpr-1.0.0-9.i386.deb

sudo dpkg -i --force-all dcp540cncupswrapper-1.0.0-10.i386.deb

OK, you can now switch on the printer.
If you want, have a quick look in System>Administration>Printing to see if the printer is there, set it as default. Don't try any printing yet

Open your web browser and go to the CUPS printer interface

http://localhost:631

You 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.)
Click "Manage Printers."
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

Enter

lpd://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/binary_p1

in the window (where the xxx's are the printer's IP address).
For ppd enter

/usr/share/cups/model/brdcp540cn.ppd

You should get a "printer configured successfully" page, then be return to the main printer page
Send it a test page. You can configure "Printer Options" from CUPS.
With any luck, your printer will spark into life and print!
Now open up a document in gedit/whatever and test print again.
Go back into System>Administration>Printing and check/change any printer options you might want.

Note: when I printed a test page from CUPS, even though it printed fine, the print job still lingered on the page, I had to delete this job from the printer queue when I went to test print from gedit.

Note: do not appear to be getting any print settings coming through, e.g. fast/fast normal apart from page size
[EDIT] Fast and Fast Normal print settings started working after a reboot!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scanner

Advice is to have printer switched off again, although i didn't switch off and the installation went flawlessly. To be on safe side, suggest switch off while installing drivers.

Again for a Network setup only:

You have already installed sane and xsane
Run xsane in a terminal just to check it is up and working (it won't show the scanner we want yet)
install the Brother scanner driver either using Gdebi or command line:

sudo aptitude install brscan2-0.2.4-0.i386.deb

(you need the brsan2 version)

To use your machine as a network scanner, you need to set a friendly name, model name and IP address or node name for the driver:
using IP address:

brsaneconfig2 -a name=FRIENDLY-NAME model=MODEL-NAME ip=xx.xx.xx.xx

or using node name

brsaneconfig2 -a name=FRIENDLY-NAME model=MODEL-NAME nodename=BRN_xxxxx

Example

brsaneconfig2 -a name=BROTHER-SCANNER model=DCP-540CN ip=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

You can check the result by running the command:

brsaneconfig2 -q

which should give you an output like this: (after printing a long list of device names)

Devices on network
  0 BROTHER-SCANNER     "DCP-540CN"         I:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Now run Xsane
And scan something, click Acquire Preview and there you go...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: Uninstalling printer and scanner drivers to start again:

This is a pain, "dpkg -r" gets quite upset about trying to uninstall these drivers.

To uninstall the printer drivers go to:

cd /var/lib/dpkg/info/

and scroll through the files to find a set of files that start with "dcp540cn*"
Using root nautilus, delete all these files, then in terminal

sudo dpkg -r --force-remove-reinstreq dcp540cncupswrapper
sudo dpkg -r --force-remove-reinstreq dcp540cnlpr

To uninstall the scanner driver:

cd /var/lib/dpkg/info/

and scroll through the files to find a set of files that start with "brscan2*"
Using root nautilus, delete all these files, then in terminal

sudo dpkg -r --force-remove-reinstreq brscan2

All this worked for me, and I hope it will work for you, but you attempt all this at your own risk

Thanks to Brother, and all the contributors on the forum for their work and heartache in sorting these printers out

[labinnsw]

Matchless, Thanks for your reply to my post under the Kubuntu How to. Happy to say, in the end I did not need to uninstall anyway.

Guitara, you're a genious. Even though I did not know what I was doing, I was able to use your shell script to get the printer working. Did some reading and 1. entered in the Terminal "sudo -i /XXXXXXXXXX/Edgy_Brother_MFC-210C_Installer.txt" (Where /XXXXXXXXXX is the path to the script) 2. entered my password. 3. Selected the printer from the pop-up window 4. followed the instructions. Worked like magic. I am very impressed with you guys, yourself and Matchless.

Just in case another novice like myself is reading this and wants to find the path. Locate the downloaded script and right click on it. Select properties. From here you can highlight and copy the path.

Thanks a lot guys, now I am totally satisfied with my Ubuntu.

Regards
labinnsw

[GothicX]

My printer Brother DCP-115C is still working after upgrade from Edgy to Feisty Herd5, now Beta

[axcairns]

Excellent howto! I just set up a MFC-215C on Feisty with no problems. The only quirk was that there was no line for the MFC-210 in 45-libsane.rules but I just copied and pasted your example for the 215C and was off and running!

Cheers,


Allan

[Matchless]

Hi,
Guitara has set up a script for doing all the dirty work. You can get it here http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=283 There is even one for feisty.
Guitara, thanks, I am sure this will help many and I will put a link on my howto as well.

[Quark Green]

Hello all,
Thank you for this howto. I followed the instructions to set up printing on MFC-215C connected via USB and it worked first time.
Regards, QG.

[Matchless]

Thanks for the feedback, this helps letting me know that there are no typos and other mistakes.
Appreciated.

[cowkiller]

Thanks man, you're a lifesaver... I couldn't print anything in my brother MFC-215C so far and you dunno how was this printing problem driving me mad
It worked at the first try in Ubuntu.

[Matchless]

Glad it helped!

[johninbanagher]

Great How To, I installed my DCP-340CW on a clean install of fiesty with no probs