[kwlug-disc] Recommended printer / scanner all in one combo.

[Bob Jonkman]

Chris Irwin says:

> Apparently Brother has some proprietary drivers on their website. They
> actually package them as .deb and .rpm files, so it should be easy to
> handle if you wanted to go that route. I have never even compared them
> as they are 32-bit and I didn't feel the need to go through the manual
> process for a 64-bit system just to satisfy my curiosity.
>
> http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/cups_drivers.html

My mileage varied...

I just installed a Brother MFC-7440N B&W laser/scanner/fax on Ubuntu 
Karmic.  It wasn't recognized, and wouldn't work until I installed those 
proprietary drivers. It's a fast printer, it can spit out a full tray of 
blank paper in the time it takes to cancel a print job over the network. 
Now it prints fine, but the scanner portion still doesn't work. 
Fortunately, the owner currently has no interest in faxing. 

I ran out of time (Saturdays are only so long), and I anticipate another 
full-day printer wrestling session next weekend.

FWIW, the 32-bit drivers installed perfectly on 64-bit Karmic using dpkg 
with the --force-all switch, no manual process required.


--Bob.


Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com>         http://sobac.com/sobac/
SOBAC Microcomputer Services              Voice: +1-519-669-0388
6 James Street, Elmira ON  Canada  N3B 1L5  Cel: +1-519-635-9413
Software   ---   Office & Business Automation   ---   Consulting




Chris Irwin wrote:
> On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 00:05 -0500, unsolicited wrote:
>   
>> Nobody doing colour laser instead of inkjet?
>>     
>
> I have a Brother HL4040CDN colour laser. It is network-attached and
> worked out of the box with Ubuntu. It shares through all the regular
> Unixy methods you would expect and advertises via avahi. Adding a
> printer in system-config-printer automatically sees it on the network,
> you just need to select it and go.
>
> It is a simple PCL printer and actually gets detected as a 4040CN (the
> identical model minus duplex), but duplex works so I never bothered
> correcting the ID. Interestingly, the reference page indicates that you
> need to modify the 4040CN definition to have duplex work. Maybe Ubuntu
> handled this. Again, I don't really care why it works :)
>
> http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Brother-HL-4040CDN
> http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Brother-HL-4040CN
>
> I ended up adding more memory to the unit as I got out of memory errors
> when printing pages with graphics. I guess it uses a lot of memory
> translating PCL encoded graphics. Seems to work passably well now.
>
> Apparently there is some sort of FTP and POP3 mode so I can email or FTP
> a document to it and have it print it out automatically. Never bothered
> looking into it. I don't quite see the target for that functionality.
>
> Apparently Brother has some proprietary drivers on their website. They
> actually package them as .deb and .rpm files, so it should be easy to
> handle if you wanted to go that route. I have never even compared them
> as they are 32-bit and I didn't feel the need to go through the manual
> process for a 64-bit system just to satisfy my curiosity.
>
> http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/cups_drivers.html
>
> If I was to buy again, I'd pay a little extra and go for the 4050 series
> as it does Postscript natively. Then I apparently wouldn't need special
> drivers on Windows or Mac OS either.
>
>
>   
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>
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