Re: How to get (DFSG-free) Brother drivers into Debian
On Mon, Oct 05, 2015 at 11:37:05AM +0200, Dominik George wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> after receiving the shocking news that my employer got a replacement printer
> that is not yet supported by Debian, I had a look at what options there are.
>
> The printer is a Brother HL-L8250CDN and Brother is known to have excellent
> Linux support (apart from delivering very low-standard packages for Debian).
>
> Getting the printer to work is a matter of downloading a .deb file and
> installing it.
>
> However, I had a deeper look into this pckage, and other driver packages, and
> found them containing two things: a PPD file and a filter, the latter written
> in POSIX shell, and both being licensed under GPL version 2 or newer.
>
> While the downloads on teh Brother website carry hints on the drivers being
> proprietary, the seperate files in the packages tell a different story and are
> clearly tagged with a DFSG-compatible license.
Hi,
At least for the MFC9465CDN this is not all that is required if you want to
use Brother drivers. Apart from that GPL'ed package containing the PPD and
the filter (CUPSwrapper) you also need a Brother LPR driver that is sourceless
and propietary. I'd be happy to know that Brother has changed this, but does
not seem so.
Regarding your printer, according to
http://www.openprinting.org/printer/Brother/Brother-HL-L8250CDN
printer works with CUPS "Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer" driver, including
duplex, but unfortunately only monochrome.
Regarding color, since according to
http://support.brother.com/g/b/spec.aspx?c=us_ot&lang=en&prod=hll8250cdn_all
it supports BRScript3, you may want to try some of the Brother PPD files.
For the MFC9465CDN I first tried MFC-9450CDN and later MFC9840CDW PPD files
from foomatic-db. Also tried a MFC-9465CDN taken from Brother disks (without
license notice, so not for free distribution).
When you try these files be very careful to make printer interrupt work in
case of error, not stop printer. Otherwise in case of error printer will be
stopped for all users and you will need to hard switch it off and on to
resume.
I am mentioning this because I had some errors with pdf containing some
bitmap (see http://bugs.debian.org/792514). Although in that bug report I
suggests the workaround I use in my system, which works for most files, it
does not work for all, so be careful.
PS: I am not member of debian-printing nor I am subscribed to the list,
please cc me on replies. I am curious to know if something has changed.
Regards,
--
Agustin
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