Using the Brother HL1100 printer.

[dutch2710]

Hello all,

I was using MX Linux with fun and wahappy to use it. (just had troubloes with Whatsapp).

However had to stop because I was not able to install my printer HL 1010 or HL1100 (Brother).
Of course I treid to contact Brothers with the question.
However the answer was that they showed an install but that they did not support Linux-users in gtenral.

Ploease inform.

Hans Minekus

[Gabriel_M]

You can download them from here, in my case they worked very well.
https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloa ... _as&os=128

[m_pav]

If your printer is a networked printer through a LAN or Wifi, disabling the AHAVI service using MX Service Manager, then running the Brother Install Script Gabriel_M pointed you to is the best way forward.

The AHAVI service is responsible for allowing driverless printing for printers on the same network as your computer and you're likely to find the printer automatically added to your machine, BUT, 9 times out of 10, it will have the wrong URI leading to a failed print every time, and it gets in the way of the Brother install script by causing the printer name assigned to it to be awkwardly modified so as to make it confusing when trying to select exactly which copy of the printer you should use. Disabling the AHAVI service will remove all automatically added driverless printers making the way clear for Brothers Script to provide a clear and concise name that properly identifies your printer.

Before you even get started, if you're able to log into your router and find the printers IP Address is, write it down, then see if your router proves a means to lock, Pin, or make permanent the Printers IP Address so it can not be stolen by any other device while it's sleeping. For Example, the lease time on all IP's may be anything from 5 minutes to 24 hours and when a printer enters a deep sleep state, it's IP Address lease can expire and become available for other devices like cell phones which come and go frequently to be assigned the IP Address previously used by your printer.

After having done all of that, run the Brother install script and when the script asks for the printers IP Address, type in what you recorded earlier. Again, when the script asks if you want to choose/provide the URI, answer yes, and when presented with a list of potential URI's enter the number of the line that has IPP and allow the script to complete.

Thereafter, your printer will provide flawless operations.

[asqwerth]

If you go to the link provided in post #2 and actually click on the download button, the install instructions from Brother show up. [I find it silly of Brother that they choose to hide the instructions until you have downloaded the package, but I digress]. I chose the option of the LPR driver, and below are the instructions for this driver. I assume if you choose the CUPS wrapper driver instead, another set of instructions will appear.

Download LPR driver.

Login as a superuser ( or use "sudo" option if required).

Install the driver.

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        Turn on the printer and connect the usb, network or parallel cable.
        Go to the directory where the driver is.
        
        Install LPR driver.The install process may take some time. Please wait until it is complete. 
       Command  :  dpkg -i --force-all  (lpr-drivername)

        Check if the LPR driver is installed.
        Command  :  dpkg -l  |  grep  Brother

Confirm/Configure a file according to your connection.

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      Check the configuration filename for your distribution.
        Example:
        openSUSE, Ubuntu, Debian : /etc/printcap
        Redhat, fedora, Mandriva : /etc/printcap.local
         
        Edit the file according to your connection.
        For USB Connection (Default)
        Check if the parameter of ":lp" is ":lp=/dev/usb/lp0"

        For Network Connection
        replace ":lp" line to the following 2 lines
        :rm=(ip address of your printer)\
        :rp=lp\


        For Parallel Connection
        replace ":lp" line to the following line
        :lp=/dev/lp0\
         
        Restart the print system.

        Command  (for  lpr):  /etc/init.d/lpr  restart

        Command  (for  lprng)  :  /etc/init.d/lprng  restart
        

Try a test print.

The above are manual driver install instructions, not using the brother install script.

Note 1: I have no experience with the HL series of Brother printers, but have used 3 different Brother networked MFC printer/scanners since 2011. They all work fine on Linux, but sometimes after installing the drivers, the driver-assigned URI may not work. So what I do is:

1. I set my printer to have a fixed URI location within my home network;
2. I install the Brother-provided driver, and try to print a test page from the Printer config/settings GUI.
3. if no test page is printed, I go to the printer driver entry in the Printer Config/Settings GUI and edit it by changing the driver-provided URI location to the fixed network address that I assigned to the printer.

OR

BEFORE YOU INSTALL ANY BROTHER DRIVER, you can try editing the location URI in the printer entry created by the the autodetect functionality [avahi]. I did that in MX21 - no install of new drivers when the autodetect didn't work perfectly. Just changed the URI and it started working.


Once I get the location correct in whatever printer entry is edited, none of my distros have any problem finding the printer in my network. I have never disabled the avahi service in all my years of using MX and other Linux distros.


I suspect you can do something similar with your driver install as well, as the instructions from the Brother download link above refer to editing the printer "location" in the /etc/printcap file. I'm guessing that using the Printer Config Settings GUI to edit location does the same thing.

Note 2: with regard to the latest MFC I got a few months ago, the auto-detect printer entry worked perfectly in MX23 without any editing. [this wasn't the case in other distros, where I still had to edit entries to show the fixed network address]. The autodetect also worked flawlessly out of the box for the scanner function.

[m_pav]

BEFORE YOU INSTALL ANY BROTHER DRIVER, you can try editing the location URI in the printer entry created by the the autodetect functionality [avahi]. I did that in MX21 - no install of new drivers when the autodetect didn't work perfectly. Just changed the URI and it started working.

That method never works out with Bookworm. What you will find IF you do so is the AHAVI Daemon will re-detect the same printer and add it back immediately with a yet more messed up name. It gets worse, it comes back straight away if you delete it with an even longer name with all sorts of junk appended to the end of printer name. Trust me, this is not a road you want to follow in bookworm.

Prior to the Debian Bookworm base, the AHAVI Daemon was reasonably well behaved, thereafter, it turned to absolute (unspeakable) and it's one of the first things I disable. Starting with the AHAVI daemon disabled on MX23.x, I take the time to set up all of my printers to have fixed IP Addresses through both at the printer controls and through pinning the IP Address through the Router. Having done that, my printing, and those I've set up for others have never missed a beat, rock solid and reliable each and every time. There is a catch though, the MFC's which have scanning capabilities require a root password to open the scanner interface, but for the frequency with which I use the scanner vs printing, that is a very minor issue I can live with.

Not long after we released MX23, I found the issue with AHAVI and all the printer models I have available to me to test had the exact same issue, all were righted by disabling the service and using IPP as the URI suring setup, now all are simply perfect. Disclaimer - I halted all my dealing with HP printers many many years back, so I can not speak to their hplip and the hp-lip-gui endeavours. Brother do excellent drivers, but the AHAVI daemon causes a rift in the time-space continuum and poops on it all.

That got me thinking on how Apple and Windows handle their printing, so I started digging. I hacked around with Windows to dig deep and find out why their LAN printing was so reliable. As I got closer to the source, I discovered one thing common to all Network attached printers, that was the use of the IPP protocol at the heart of everything related to network printing. Many of the other protocols were found, and quite different for differing brands, but they all point to the same URI, that URI is IPP.

[seriousness]

I managed to install the drivers for my HL-2250DN on AVL 23.1.

I downloaded the LPR and the CUPSwrapper package and installed both with 'apt install'.

It is important to install the LPR-package first!

[asqwerth]

That method never works out with Bookworm. What you will find IF you do so is the AHAVI Daemon will re-detect the same printer and add it back immediately with a yet more messed up name. It gets worse, it comes back straight away if you delete it with an even longer name with all sorts of junk appended to the end of printer name. Trust me, this is not a road you want to follow in bookworm.

Ah so. I didn't experience this with MX23 since the auto-detect entry worked OOTB.

But I recall having autodetect entries that didn't work in other distros. I can't recall if I tried editing the URI and failing and having a new autodetect entry pop up. What I do recall is that if I was unable to edit and get the auto detect entry to work, I simply install the actual driver, give the working entry a different name, and make that the default printer. I was happy to just ignore the non-working entry.

Prior to the Debian Bookworm base, the AHAVI Daemon was reasonably well behaved, thereafter, it turned to absolute (unspeakable) and it's one of the first things I disable. Starting with the AHAVI daemon disabled on MX23.x, I take the time to set up all of my printers to have fixed IP Addresses through both at the printer controls and through pinning the IP Address through the Router. Having done that, my printing, and those I've set up for others have never missed a beat, rock solid and reliable each and every time. There is a catch though, the MFC's which have scanning capabilities require a root password to open the scanner interface, but for the frequency with which I use the scanner vs printing, that is a very minor issue I can live with.

Regarding pinning the IP address through the Router, I had previously had the person setting up my home's internet connections do it for me. So I continue to use the same pinned IP address for the new MFC.

Yep, I reported the "root for scanner" bug during the alpha/beta phase. I use my scanner a fair bit, so having the password box pop up would annoy me. Luckily MX23 autodetect works perfectly with my new MFC scanner. I believe this is the first release of MX that I haven't needed to install and configure the Brother scanner driver, at least not for simple-scan and skanpage. However, the gscan2pdf application cannot work with the autodetect entry and could only work with the Brother scan driver. This was the case in other distros as well.

Not long after we released MX23, I found the issue with AHAVI and all the printer models I have available to me to test had the exact same issue, all were righted by disabling the service and using IPP as the URI suring setup, now all are simply perfect. ......

..... I discovered one thing common to all Network attached printers, that was the use of the IPP protocol at the heart of everything related to network printing. Many of the other protocols were found, and quite different for differing brands, but they all point to the same URI, that URI is IPP.

Interesting. Learned something new today.

For my new MFC, Brother's own instructions say to use the lpd://[bla bla bla] syntax, which works for me.

Perhaps when I'm not lazy, I shall create a new printer entry and test the IPP format.

[dutch2710]

To everybody who answered my cry for help.
Thank you so much for the help.
Tomorrow I will have a try-out and see if one of the offered solutions help me to install the printer.
Interesting is that (I use this now) Zorin finds the printers.
But I prefer MX because I have the impression MX is faster.

Thanks again.

Hans Minekus in Holland ( I am ashamed to mention my countries name)

[m_pav]

https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloa ... _as&os=128

I have found that I can use the same Driver Install Tool for all Brother makes and models, no need to download the exact one because it's just a script that asks you for your printer model, then downloads and installs the drivers for that model.

I have to ask though, did our very own @fehlix have something to do with the making of this script that Brother Intl are distributing?

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#!/bin/bash
# set -x
# brinstaller.sh
# by fehlix,  2016 -2019
# helper script to fetch'n'install latest Brother printer driver

[fehlix]

It helped me get the proprietary printer driver for my Brother printers without having to search the internet.
Probably most newer printers no longer need these drivers as most of them are covered by
by the cups driverless detection. But I admit that I always try both the printer provided by Brother and the driverless one.