Brother HL-L2395DW Printer/Scanner Insanity

Discussion:

(too old to reply)

The Real Bev

2023-09-24 18:38:54 UTC

I won't go into any great detail unless somebody here knows A LOT about
this POS.

The problem is probably with CUPS -- it simply doesn't see the printer,
which we have set to a static IP address. Works fine with windows.

Brother updates only .deb and .rpm files, and the conversions are
frequently FUBAR. Nothing useful on the CD.

Thanks for listening.

--
Cheers, Bev
A recent psychic fair was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.

RinaldiJ

2023-09-24 19:19:13 UTC

Permalink

Post by The Real Bev
I won't go into any great detail unless somebody here knows A LOT about
this POS.
The problem is probably with CUPS -- it simply doesn't see the printer,
which we have set to a static IP address. Works fine with windows.
Brother updates only .deb and .rpm files, and the conversions are
frequently FUBAR. Nothing useful on the CD.
Thanks for listening.

Years ago I downloaded the Brother's linux script which downloaded the
rpm's. Installed them; and pulled my hair out finding that one of the
executables was a 32 bit elf. Installed Alien's multilib packages
(don't remember which one contains the magic) and all has been good since.

I do recall the IP was a bit touchy - socket://192.etc works here.

I read recently the .deb had 64 bit arch covered. Dunno for sure.

Here's my files:

ls -A Printer/
brscan-skey-0.2.4-1.x86_64.rpm mfcj4510dwcupswrapper-3.0.1-1.i386.rpm
brscan-skey-0.3.1-2.x86_64.rpm mfcj4510dwlpr-3.0.1-1.i386.rpm
brscan4-0.4.11-1.x86_64.rpm uninstaller_MFCJ4510DW
brscan4-0.4.8-1.x86_64.rpm uninstaller_brscan-skey
linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.1-1 uninstaller_brscan4

Rinaldi

The Real Bev

2023-09-25 15:51:57 UTC

Permalink

Post by RinaldiJ

Hubby gripes about my need for multilib due to my requirement to use Picasa.

Post by RinaldiJ
I do recall the IP was a bit touchy - socket://192.etc works here.
I read recently the .deb had 64 bit arch covered. Dunno for sure.
ls -A Printer/
brscan-skey-0.2.4-1.x86_64.rpm mfcj4510dwcupswrapper-3.0.1-1.i386.rpm
brscan-skey-0.3.1-2.x86_64.rpm mfcj4510dwlpr-3.0.1-1.i386.rpm
brscan4-0.4.11-1.x86_64.rpm uninstaller_MFCJ4510DW
brscan4-0.4.8-1.x86_64.rpm uninstaller_brscan-skey
linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.1-1 uninstaller_brscan4

He ultimately solved the problem by NOT making the obvious choices in
the CUPS setup(s). The solution was electing 'network printer' (or
similar generic; I'm afraid to even LOOK now for fear of damaging the
installation), the IP address and a CERTAIN .ppd file (there are over a
dozen on my machine now, same name, sprinkled all over hell and gone).

I really hate the concept of sprinkling necessary files all over the
installation. I can understand there being common libraries, but not
the need for program-specific files (sometimes identical files) located
in numerous locations. Win3 did it right!

I did get the scanner working with xsane all by myself, though!

--
Cheers, Bev
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already
earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by
mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
-- Albert Einstein

John Forkosh

2023-09-24 19:50:03 UTC

Permalink

I've got one running fine with cups. Download the "Driver Install
Tool" (you just need that tool, which will download the other
drivers, etc, when you run it) from...

https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2395dw_us_as&os=127

...and run it (as root). First make sure cups is running and the printer
is on, and that you've already got the printer connected to your wireless
router or wap (the blue light on the printer should be steady), and that's
all turned on.

It'll first ask you which printer model, so type exactly HL-L2395DW,
and then all goes smoothly. When it asks "Will you specify the DeviceURI?",
answer Y and give it that static IP address. And that should do it.
When it asks to print a test page, that should work fine. Did for me.
The scanner stuff is mostly in /opt/brother/ and you should notice
various stuff in /etc/cups/ and various other stuff under /usr/.../

I don't use its scanner, so can't speak to that from first-hand experience,
but the printer works fine. If I'm printing from firefox and the printer
is off, it suggests "Save to pdf". If the printer's on, it automatically
suggests "HLL2395DW", and it indeed prints there.

--
John Forkosh ( mailto: ***@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

Jerry Peters

2023-09-24 20:54:46 UTC

Permalink

Post by John Forkosh

I've got one running fine with cups. Download the "Driver Install
Tool" (you just need that tool, which will download the other
drivers, etc, when you run it) from...
https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2395dw_us_as&os=127
...and run it (as root). First make sure cups is running and the printer
is on, and that you've already got the printer connected to your wireless
router or wap (the blue light on the printer should be steady), and that's
all turned on.
It'll first ask you which printer model, so type exactly HL-L2395DW,
and then all goes smoothly. When it asks "Will you specify the DeviceURI?",
answer Y and give it that static IP address. And that should do it.
When it asks to print a test page, that should work fine. Did for me.
The scanner stuff is mostly in /opt/brother/ and you should notice
various stuff in /etc/cups/ and various other stuff under /usr/.../
I don't use its scanner, so can't speak to that from first-hand experience,
but the printer works fine. If I'm printing from firefox and the printer
is off, it suggests "Save to pdf". If the printer's on, it automatically
suggests "HLL2395DW", and it indeed prints there.

I have a HL220DW, brscan works fine for scanning.

For printing I use brlaser 6.2 from https://github.com/QORTEC/brlaser

This is a fork of brlaser6 from https://github.com/pdewacht/brlaser

with additional printer entries including yours, it's listed as
Brother HL-L2350DW series

You need to build either one from source, but it's a painless process,
and unlike the the Brother drivers (at least for the HL2280) it's 64
bit, so multilib is not needed.

John Forkosh

2023-09-24 21:35:01 UTC

Permalink

Post by Jerry Peters

Post by John Forkosh

I've got one running fine with cups. Download the "Driver Install
Tool" (you just need that tool, which will download the other
drivers, etc, when you run it) from...
https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2395dw_us_as&os=127
...and run it (as root). First make sure cups is running and the printer
is on, and that you've already got the printer connected to your wireless
router or wap (the blue light on the printer should be steady), and that's
all turned on.
It'll first ask you which printer model, so type exactly HL-L2395DW,
and then all goes smoothly. When it asks "Will you specify the DeviceURI?",
answer Y and give it that static IP address. And that should do it.
When it asks to print a test page, that should work fine. Did for me.
The scanner stuff is mostly in /opt/brother/ and you should notice
various stuff in /etc/cups/ and various other stuff under /usr/.../
I don't use its scanner, so can't speak to that from first-hand experience,
but the printer works fine. If I'm printing from firefox and the printer
is off, it suggests "Save to pdf". If the printer's on, it automatically
suggests "HLL2395DW", and it indeed prints there.

I have a HL220DW, brscan works fine for scanning.
For printing I use brlaser 6.2 from https://github.com/QORTEC/brlaser
This is a fork of brlaser6 from https://github.com/pdewacht/brlaser
with additional printer entries including yours, it's listed as
Brother HL-L2350DW series
You need to build either one from source, but it's a painless process,
and unlike the the Brother drivers (at least for the HL2280) it's 64
bit, so multilib is not needed.

Yeah, multilib slipped my mind, and I also don't even have it installed,
either. Not sure why the other followup post thought it's necessary.

--
John Forkosh ( mailto: ***@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

RinaldiJ

2023-09-24 23:11:23 UTC

Permalink

------------

Post by John Forkosh
Yeah, multilib slipped my mind, and I also don't even have it installed,
either. Not sure why the other followup post thought it's necessary.

# file /opt/brother/Printers/mfcj4510dw/cupswrapper/brcupsconfpt1
/opt/brother/Printers/mfcj4510dw/cupswrapper/brcupsconfpt1: *ELF 32-bit*
LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked,
interpreter /lib/ld-linux.so.2, stripped

Rinaldi

John Forkosh

2023-09-25 06:30:14 UTC

Permalink

Post by RinaldiJ
------------

Post by John Forkosh
Yeah, multilib slipped my mind, and I also don't even have it installed,
either. Not sure why the other followup post thought it's necessary.

Weird, don't know what to tell you. But I definitely don't have
multilib installed, definitely did run that Brother install script
as previously described, and my HL-L2395DW is definitely working
fine under cups (for printing anyway; like I said, don't use the
scanner). And, by the way, have run that Brother script on several
installs of slack150x64-current, from 2021 till recently (before
that had a different Brother printer that also worked fine under
cups, installed analogously). Maybe your mfcj4510dw install needs
multilib, or maybe you're running 14.2, or something?

--
John Forkosh ( mailto: ***@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

RinaldiJ

2023-09-25 12:41:06 UTC

Permalink

Post by John Forkosh

Post by RinaldiJ
------------

Post by John Forkosh
Yeah, multilib slipped my mind, and I also don't even have it installed,
either. Not sure why the other followup post thought it's necessary.

I suspect it depends on the model of the printer.

Rinaldi

Jerry Peters

2023-09-25 19:59:08 UTC

Permalink

Post by RinaldiJ

Post by John Forkosh

Post by RinaldiJ
------------

Post by John Forkosh
Yeah, multilib slipped my mind, and I also don't even have it installed,
either. Not sure why the other followup post thought it's necessary.

I suspect it depends on the model of the printer.
Rinaldi

You're probably right, my hl2280 is fairly old & Brother hasn't
updated anything for it recently, that's why I use brlaser, you can
build it in 64 bit format.

John Forkosh

2023-09-26 05:47:11 UTC

Permalink

Post by RinaldiJ

Post by John Forkosh

Post by RinaldiJ
------------

Post by John Forkosh
Yeah, multilib slipped my mind, and I also don't even have it installed,
either. Not sure why the other followup post thought it's necessary.

I suspect it depends on the model of the printer.
Rinaldi

Actually, I should have looked a little more carefully.
If you go to that...

https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2395dw_us_as&os=127

...page, and look past that "Driver Install Tool" link at top,
which is all I've ever bothered with, you'll see download links
for the individual drivers, in **BOTH** 32- and 64-bit versions.
So the driver install tool apparently detects your architecture
and downloads drivers accordingly. And it's always worked okay
for me, without multilib. Maybe you already had multilib installed,
and seeing those 32-bit libs, it download the 32-bit Brother drivers.

--
John Forkosh ( mailto: ***@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

RinaldiJ

2023-09-26 12:31:48 UTC

Permalink

On 9/26/23 00:47, John Forkosh wrote:
--------------

Post by John Forkosh
Actually, I should have looked a little more carefully.
If you go to that...
https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2395dw_us_as&os=127
...page, and look past that "Driver Install Tool" link at top,
which is all I've ever bothered with, you'll see download links
for the individual drivers, in **BOTH** 32- and 64-bit versions.
So the driver install tool apparently detects your architecture
and downloads drivers accordingly. And it's always worked okay
for me, without multilib. Maybe you already had multilib installed,
and seeing those 32-bit libs, it download the 32-bit Brother drivers.

The installer I used was linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.1-1 (2018); I see
they're up to 2.2.3-1 now.

Rinaldi

The Real Bev

2023-09-26 16:19:18 UTC

Permalink

Post by RinaldiJ
--------------

The installer I used was linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.1-1 (2018); I see
they're up to 2.2.3-1 now.

Downloaded and converted the [presumably latest]rpm but didn't actually
run it. Files are the same as the ones already installed. Since
everything is working now I'm just going to leave it alone and tiptoe
away quietly.

Although I haven't actually tried it today...

--
Cheers, Bev
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala,
it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet." -- Anon.

The Real Bev

2023-09-25 15:56:45 UTC

Permalink

Post by John Forkosh

I've got one running fine with cups. Download the "Driver Install
Tool" (you just need that tool, which will download the other
drivers, etc, when you run it) from...

Yes, I saw that. I've tried to convert deb/rpm files before with mostly
botched results. I'm really unwilling to just let an unknown and
possibly flakey 'installer' make the choices. If all that's really
needed is the correct .ppd file, that seems like overkill.

Post by John Forkosh
https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2395dw_us_as&os=127
...and run it (as root). First make sure cups is running and the printer
is on, and that you've already got the printer connected to your wireless
router or wap (the blue light on the printer should be steady), and that's
all turned on.
It'll first ask you which printer model, so type exactly HL-L2395DW,
and then all goes smoothly. When it asks "Will you specify the DeviceURI?",
answer Y and give it that static IP address. And that should do it.
When it asks to print a test page, that should work fine. Did for me.
The scanner stuff is mostly in /opt/brother/ and you should notice
various stuff in /etc/cups/ and various other stuff under /usr/.../
I don't use its scanner, so can't speak to that from first-hand experience,
but the printer works fine. If I'm printing from firefox and the printer
is off, it suggests "Save to pdf". If the printer's on, it automatically
suggests "HLL2395DW", and it indeed prints there.

--
Cheers, Bev
"Don't bother looking for that key. There is no Esc."
-- M. Tabnik

Jerry Peters

2023-09-25 19:56:06 UTC

Permalink

Post by The Real Bev

Post by John Forkosh

I've got one running fine with cups. Download the "Driver Install
Tool" (you just need that tool, which will download the other
drivers, etc, when you run it) from...

.deb files are easy, it's an ar archive containing 2 compressed
tar files, IIRC data.tgz * control.tgz. data has the actual code.
Create a temp directory & cd into it. ar -x <path to deb>
tar -xvf datz.tgz to extract the code
The control file is scripts & info about the package.

John Forkosh

2023-09-26 05:38:25 UTC

Permalink

Post by Jerry Peters

Post by The Real Bev

Post by John Forkosh

I've got one running fine with cups. Download the "Driver Install
Tool" (you just need that tool, which will download the other
drivers, etc, when you run it) from...

And .rpm may be even easier, slackware has various rpm tools,
just apropos rpm. The link I gave you...

https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2395dw_us_as&os=127

...has os=127 at the end. That's for rpm. The deb download
has os=128. Moreover, if you just click that "Driver Install Tool"
on the 127 page, you'll end up with linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.3-1.gz
in your Downloads directory. gunzip it and run it as described earlier.
It'll deal with all drivers itself, no need for you to convert
or explicitly install anything.

--
John Forkosh ( mailto: ***@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )