Arch Linux

abdulhakeem

Member

From: Chicagoland

Registered: 2016-07-31

Posts: 36

Website

[SOLVED] Driver(s) for Brother MFC-7420

Hello everyone,

My printer is a Brother MFC-7420 and it seems there is no AUR package for it.

I've seen this page regarding Brother drivers, but I have no idea how to make a PKGBUILD. I'm not a developer so it's quite a bit above my level of knowledge:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … er_drivers

And this is also definitely way above my level of knowledge:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ar … _standards

So could someone help me out and make one for me? Printer driver is available here:
http://support.brother.com/g/b/download … all&os=127

Thanks in advance

EDIT:

Figured it out, it's actually surprisingly way less complicated than I thought. Ignore all of the above about packaging the driver. Leaving this up in case anyone else has the same printer and needs to know how to install it on Arch.

0) Make sure your printer is powered on and connected to your USB port

1) Install the footmatic packages - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CUPS#Foomatic

2) Go to the CUPS admin page. In your browser, go to localhost:631, click "Administration" in the menu at the very top, enter root credentials (your regular username will not work here, must be root)

3) Under "Printers" heading, click Add Printer

4) Under "Local Printers", you should see "Brother MFC-7420"

5) Enter Name, Description, Location (or just leave at Default values)

6) Now it should provide you with a long list of drivers. There is no listing for the MFC-7420, however you can use "Brother MFC- 9600 Foomatic/hl 1250 (recommended) en". Select this entry and click "Add Printer" at the bottom. (Source: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1923155)

7) CUPS will now ask you for some default settings for the printer, adjust however you want

8) Go to Administration>Manage Printers>Brother_MFC-7420, click the Maintenance drop-down menu, and select Print Test Page to confirm that the printer is working

Should be good to go from there!

Now to try to figure out getting the Scanner driver to work... will update this thread once it's working in case someone else has the same printer and needs help

UPDATE:

Scanner was also really simple.

1) Make sure you have SANE installed - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SANE
2) Install the appropriate brscan package from the AUR - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SA … ms#Brother
3) Confirm correct brscan version - http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux … d_scn.html
3) for the MFC-7420, brscan2 is the package needed, so go to your terminal and enter 'pacaur -S brscan2' (or whatever AUR helper you use. Or do it manually, if you want)
4) Do a test scan to make sure it works (I use gscan2pdf)

Enjoy your freshly installed printer/scanner combo!

Last edited by abdulhakeem (2016-08-27 14:11:28)

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And the worldly life is not but amusement and diversion; but the home of the Hereafter is best for those who fear Allah, so will you not reason? {6:32}

KoolDude214

Member

Registered: 2017-02-17

Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED] Driver(s) for Brother MFC-7420

I wish it was that easy for me, every print job that I send, it just sends back the print saying the print is completed whilst the printer does nothing.

Brian475

Member

Registered: 2023-04-30

Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED] Driver(s) for Brother MFC-7420

This is a seriously old thread, but I'm new to Arch, have an ancient Brother 7420 which is still a workhorse. I'm just glad I found this thread because the solution abdulhakeem provided worked perfectly.