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How do I check if a Brother printer is compatible with Linux Mint? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 22 hours ago by Planchette_Phantom@lemmy.zip to c/linux@lemmy.ml
47 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm more of a casual/newbie Linux user and I want to know if a specific Brother model is compatible with it. For reference, it's the HL-L2465DW monochrome laser printer.

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[–] azimir@lemmy.ml 6 points 7 hours ago

The question is really: How do I check if a specific printer is compatible with CUPS (Common Unix Printing System).

Mint (and most other distros) use CUPS to manage printers and printing. I'd check there.

That said, Brother printers are often supported. The company is proactive on Linux drivers and tools, but I don't know about your specific device.

Once my HP LJ4 died many years ago, I moved to Brother laserjets and have never looked back. They're great.

If it's got a scanner also make sure to check out the GUI scanner tool in Mint/Cinnamon: Document Scanner It has been phenomenal for initiating network-based scanning using our printers, even handling multiplexing and simple page re-ordering issues.

[–] unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

CUPS is the UNIX (i.e. both Linux AND Mac) print software. For some reason it's maintained by Apple.

So chances are if a printer works on Mac (which it will), it'll also work on Linux (which it does).

You only need to find the right "print driver" which is actually just a preset for CUPS. Scrolling the list can be quite annoying if you don't know where to look, as it's highly unlikely to find your exact model listed (which doesn't mean others won't work - they will. It's just hit or miss sometimes if the autodetect doesn't work).

That being said, if you're shopping for a printer and have the ability to choose, try checking the manufacturer support website for "Linux drivers" (i.e. ppd files). Most should turn something up.

[–] hasnep@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

For some reason it's maintained by Apple.

Hasn't been for a few years now, the maintained fork is OpenPrinting CUPS.

[–] molten_boron@sh.itjust.works 11 points 13 hours ago

If you look closely at the front of the printer, there should be a label of some kind. All printers have one, and it shouldn't be too difficult to find. The one you'll want will start with a "B". If the rest of the label is "rother", then it'll probably be compatible.

[–] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 hours ago

I have two Brother black and white laser printers (L2685 and L2640DW). Linux detected both of them and installed drivers for both of them. Both printers work fine for me (scanners work, too) and I haven't bothered to download specific driver packages from Brother's website (they ARE available)

You can also try booting your computer with a Live version of Mint. If Mint detects your printers during the Live session, it will detect them when you install it for real.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 7 points 14 hours ago

With Linux Mint, I haven't had to install any drivers for printers in the last few years. Your mileage may vary.

Remember that you can boot to a Linux Mint USB stick to try it out, and just remove the stick and reboot to go back to Windows, afterwards.

[–] mech@feddit.org 2 points 11 hours ago

Brother's HL-printers are fully compatible with Linux.
In Mint, it'll likely just show up as installed as soon as you connect it to the network.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 39 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Trust me. It is.

[–] actionjbone@sh.itjust.works 17 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

You're a stranger saying something on the internet, so it must be true.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 8 points 20 hours ago

Look up elsewhere about the reputation Brother has with compatibility. Personal experience: never fails. That's their jam.

[–] Elting@piefed.social 3 points 17 hours ago

Have printed using a brother printer from linux mint. It was easier than any other time ive done it lol.

[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 15 points 19 hours ago

I had a harder time setting up a brother printer on my dad's computer running windows than I did on my mom's running Mint

[–] monkeyman512@lemmy.world 25 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I just googled that model number and "Linux support". The first result was the Brother website for driver downloads, which does include packages for linux.

[–] Anivia@feddit.org 4 points 8 hours ago

They are already included in the kernel, no installation needed. Every Brother printer made in the last two decades is plug and play on Linux.

[–] StrawberryPigtails@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Brother Printers have a well deserved reputation. They work. You will probably need their proprietary drivers (which you can get from their website), but after that they just work.

I know they make a .deb available, but I think there's also a .rpm if you're repping Redhat land.

[–] queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 14 hours ago

I've never had this particular model, but I've had pretty good success printing off Brother printers with the generic print drivers, I don't think I've used the proprietary downloads in a while.

Of note: I don't have occasion to do scans all that often, so I can't say if that works. Ditto the fax function, if that's important all I can say is you have my pity. But I've used the print function to good success on a couple different machines.

Still I'd recommend testing it before committing to permanent changes, if possible. Printers are mysterious and capricious.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

You probably won't need their proprietary drivers, it'll probably just autodetect and work with CUPS without even setting it up, like my Brother DCP-L2540DW does.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

The monochrome and newer color Brother printers usually work fine without installing any drivers. If it supports IPP Everywhere, it will definitely work fine. It's the older color printers that usually need the proprietary driver for full support.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 1 points 17 hours ago

OP specifies that it's a monochrome laser

[–] dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 5 points 17 hours ago

Ask y'all's mom!

I'm sorry. I'll see myself out.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 8 points 21 hours ago

The most reliable way to know is to run Mint on a USB stick and try it.

[–] halm@leminal.space 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I installed another but similar Brother model on Arch recently, so not exactly what you're asking. But it took 5-10 minutes between finding drivers and printing a test page. I doubt it will be much different in Mint 👍

[–] cybervegan@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

Don't have any experience with this particular model, but I have found that with most printers on Mint you don't have to "do" anything at all - if it's on the network or plugged into the USB, the system will find it and install a driver automatically. I've used MANY printers with Linux over the years, and some were a right PITA to set up, but so far all the printers I've tried with mint have "just worked". The only problem I've had recently was that when I updated to the Debian Trixie based LMDE 7, a bug in CUPS misconfigures EPSON ET2860 when automatically discovered, but it still works on stock Mint 22.3 without manual intervention. The fix is to manually add it, rather than accepting the auto discovered one, so it's a problem with the discovery function, not drivers, and I suspect it's due to some kind of quirk with this printer's firmware that defines how it interacts to discovery queries on the local LAN.

[–] Tetsuo@jlai.lu 8 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I'm not familiar with Mint but couldn't OP just boot on a liveUSB and check if it works ?

[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 8 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Yes this is the best way.

On Linux I've never had to install drivers for any printers, it comes with a "generic" driver that works for a ton of brands,

[–] epyon22@sh.itjust.works 3 points 19 hours ago

Linux (Ubuntu at least) has been more out of the box compatible with printers than any other os I've used

[–] grte@lemmy.ca 5 points 21 hours ago

Possibly they are looking to buy a printer and don't yet have it.

[–] reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca 3 points 19 hours ago

Mine just worked. Didn’t install anything extra

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 3 points 20 hours ago

It is. I haven't checked, but it definitely is. Linux printer support is really good, and Brother laser printers are really straightforward.

[–] nfms@lemmy.ml 5 points 22 hours ago

Maybe check here https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=453422

[–] undrwater@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

GitHub - pdewacht/brlaser: Brother laser printer driver · GitHub https://share.google/S0CHD04Gw22MGMOmi

This will PROBABLY support your laser printer.

[–] solxix@pawb.social 4 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Since when is .google a TLD??

[–] diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)
[–] undrwater@lemmy.world 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Ugh. I try to avoid those share links.

Search 'brlaser'.

Sigh.

[–] solxix@pawb.social 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Where do those links even come from? Did Google add some "feature" to Android that changes every link you copy?

[–] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago

If you share it from certain browsers or the Google search app, Google injects a redirect link to basically track your activity and who you share it with. More marketing and user tracking bullshit.

[–] stolig@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

Just ask it: Listen brother…you going to play nice with my ring?

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

https://openprinting.org/printers/manufacturer/Brother

Unfortunately your model doesn't seem to be on that list. Brother provides linux drivers for some of their models, but they tend to be a bit of a pain to get installed (I've got HL-3040CN). Once you get the brother drivers ready the thing just works, and I guess part of the issues I've had is that my model is pretty old and drivers haven't been updated in a decade or so.

If you already have the printer just plug it in to a mint computer and you'll soon find out.

[–] Planchette_Phantom@lemmy.zip 0 points 18 hours ago

Thanks! Gonna copy that link to my saved notes

[–] CommunistCuddlefish@hexbear.net 1 points 20 hours ago

I have that or a similar model and it works fine with Mint

[–] ejs@piefed.social 0 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

That printer probably supports AirPrint, which Mint supports without any extra tinkering. Connect the printer to your network, and try going through linux mint and adding the printer through the settings. If it doesn’t show up, then you can try using drivers (install using below command) and then re-adding the printer

Install by pasting this into your terminal. Enter your password when prompted.

TMP_DEB=$(mktemp --suffix=.deb) && curl -sSL "https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2465dw_us&os=128&dlid=dlf106036_000&flang=4&type3=10283" -o "$TMP_DEB" && sudo apt install -y "$TMP_DEB" && rm -f "$TMP_DEB"

Explanation if you want to learn:

  • Brother offers drivers online
  • Download the “linux printer driver (.deb package)”
  • Then, to install onto your system, use your package manager and tell it to install the package you downloaded sudo apt install ./Downloads/package_name.deb
[–] solxix@pawb.social 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Please don't encourage Linux noobs to paste random shit into their terminal and type in their password. It's the absolute easiest way to get hacked on Linux.

[–] ejs@piefed.social 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I certainly wasn’t trying to “encourage” anything. I agree, blindly trusting commands is dangerous.

In this context I present a specific explanation of how the install works. This adds to the novice’s knowledge, and allows them to begin to understand what my one-liner does.

I think that without the context of instructions on how to do it manually, yes, you could make the case i’m enabling beginners to form/reinforce bad habits.

[–] steel_for_humans@piefed.social 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

As a Linux noob I like your oneliner but I agree with @solxix@pawb.social

A more approachable way to do that would be to use wget and then manually run apt install with the downloaded file. That's what I've been doing. :) Yours is "magic" ;)

[–] ejs@piefed.social 1 points 11 hours ago

Fair enough. Let me quickly go through the one-liner, command-by command

# Joined by `&&`, bash runs these commands in sequence (as if run individually in shell), but exits/stops execution early if any command fails (return nonzero)
TMP_DEB=$(mktemp --suffix=.deb) && curl -sSL "https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2465dw_us&os=128&dlid=dlf106036_000&flang=4&type3=10283" -o "$TMP_DEB" && sudo apt install -y "$TMP_DEB" && rm -f "$TMP_DEB"  

# Going command by command:

# First, we create a local variable in the shell, named `TMP_DEB`
# We assign the value to `$(...)`. This stores the string output (to stdout) of running the command `mktemp ...` to `TMP_DEB`
# `mktemp` creates a temporary file and prints its name, which uses the name template `tmp.XXXXXXXXXX`
# `--suffix=.deb` flag appends `.deb` to the name template
TMP_DEB=$(mktemp --suffix=.deb)

# At this point, we've created a temporary file, and saved the name to a variable in bash
# Next, we download the file using curl. `-s` makes output silent, `-S` shows errors in output, and `-L` follows redirects
# note the url doesn't end in `.deb`, implying that we will be redirected by the web server to the file path. without -`L` curl will download a page that stores the redirection response from the web server, not the .deb package
# `-o "$TMP_FILE"` forces curl to store the downloaded file to the tmp file we created
# note the quotes around the variable expansion. `$TMP_FILE` would also resolve the string stored in the variable, but we use quotes to avoid string globbing (google this)
curl -sSL "https://support.brother.com/..."

# Next, we install the package with apt
# note: we use the string stored in the variable `TMP_DEB`, the filepath to the temp file we created, and downloaded the deb package
# `-y` flag skips the confirmation question "install package [y/n]: `
sudo apt install -y "$TMP_DEB"

# Finally, to clean up we delete the tmp file
rm -f "$TMP_DEB"