Arch Linux

Markinsonia

Member

Registered: 2018-11-03

Posts: 3

Brother printer configuration issues

Hello!

Recently I switched from Windows to Arch (loving it so far), I hope this is the right place to ask! After setting up most things, I got some problems with configuring my printer. I'm using CUPS.

I just follow "Add Printer" in the CUPS web interface. First I select my printer which is listed 3 times, the first one will do fine (image).

After that I leave everything as it is (image) and then proceed to the next page.

Here I have three options for drivers (image). When I select the first or the second, and click the "print test page" button, they immediately finnish the print job without actually printing anything.

When I use the 3rd option (Brother DCP-J4120DW, driverless, cups-filters 1.21.3(en)) and print a test page, it does actually print but the resolution and print quality is pretty unacceptable even when I set the quality to "high" .   

I have tried to install the drivers from the Brother website (link) selecting Linux(rpm)

This however gave some errors which can be seen here:

[marco@archlinux Downloads]$ sudo bash linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.1-1 DCP-J4120DW
[sudo] password for marco: 
You are going to install following packages.
   dcpj4120dwlpr-3.0.1-1.i386.rpm
   dcpj4120dwcupswrapper-3.0.1-1.i386.rpm
   brscan4-0.4.6-1.x86_64.rpm
   brscan-skey-0.2.4-1.x86_64.rpm
OK? [y/N] ->y

ln: failed to create symbolic link '/etc/init.d/cupsys': No such file or directory
ln: failed to create symbolic link '/etc/init.d/cups': No such file or directory
ln: failed to create symbolic link '/etc/init.d/lpd': No such file or directory
ln: failed to create symbolic link '/etc/init.d/lprng': No such file or directory
rpm -ihv --nodeps --replacefiles --replacepkgs dcpj4120dwlpr-3.0.1-1.i386.rpm
Verifying...                          ################################# [100%]
Preparing...                          ################################# [100%]
Updating / installing...
   1:dcpj4120dwlpr-3.0.1-1            ################################# [100%]
mkdir: cannot create directory '/var/spool/lpd/dcpj4120dw': No such file or directory
chown: invalid user: 'lp'
chgrp: cannot access '/var/spool/lpd/dcpj4120dw': No such file or directory
chmod: cannot access '/var/spool/lpd/dcpj4120dw': No such file or directory
rpm -ihv --nodeps --replacefiles --replacepkgs dcpj4120dwcupswrapper-3.0.1-1.i386.rpm
Verifying...                          ########################################
Preparing...                          ########################################
Updating / installing...
dcpj4120dwcupswrapper-3.0.1-1         ########################################
lpadmin -p DCPJ4120DW -E -v dnssd://Brother%20DCP-J4120DW._ipp._tcp.local/?uuid=e3248000-80ce-11db-8000-38b1db3a8e52 -P /usr/share/cups/model/Brother/brother_dcpj4120dw_printer_en.ppd
#
Will you specify the Device URI? [Y/n] ->

What am I doing wrong? I'm only using Linux for a week or two, I can't figure out what's going wrong. I would like to be able to print high resolution images and not draft style pages, hope someone can help me out! Thanks in advance

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,893

Re: Brother printer configuration issues

You'll need to install a custom package for that printer.

read Arch User repository, makepkg and PKGBUILD pages .

Then goto https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/brother-dcpj4120dw/

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

Markinsonia

Member

Registered: 2018-11-03

Posts: 3

Re: Brother printer configuration issues

Fantastic! Works like a charm, able to print how I used to on Windows. Thanks for your time.

Can you explain to me why this works but the package from the Brother website itself doesn't? Trying to learn something from this situation for the future.

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,893

Re: Brother printer configuration issues

The brother installer/driver uses RPM .

Distributions like RedHat Enterprise Linux(RHEL), fedora, centos, OpenSuse, Suse Linux Enterprise System(SLES) support rpm.

Archlinux package manager pacman doesn't support rpm and we also do some things different then rpm-based distros.

PKGBUILDs are recipes to make software manageable by pacman.
This specific PKGBUILD downloads the rpm-files from brother and converts/adapts their content so pacman can use it.

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky