Ubuntu

Brother MFC-5440CN printer installation help

Asked by CLTrounson

Just installed Ubuntu onto a Three Year old Dell. All went on fantastically well and has given old machine new life!

However, just one small problem.

I cannot install my Brother MFC-5440CN printer.

It is not available on the list when I scanned for a printer and select BROTHER as the make.

I have followed instructions on:

http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/lpr_install.html

and cannot get any further than step 1 below. No idea how to log on to root or the password.

1 Make a temporary directory on your HDD and download the LPR driver to that directory.
2 Log in as root user or use the "su" command.
3 When the driver has been downloaded run the relevant rpm/dpkg file from the command promp

CAN YOU PLEASE help, we'd be really pleased.

Obviously very very very new to Linux based OS.

Thanks

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Fabián Rodríguez (magicfab) said : 		#1

What Ubuntu version did you install ?

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Fabián Rodríguez (magicfab) said : 		#2

If you are running Ubuntu 8.04.1, no need to follow those manual installation instructions.

Try this:
1) Go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. You may be asked for a password, it's your user password (same as when you login)
2) Search for "5440CN" (without spaces). You should see 2 results:
brother-cups-wrapper-extra
brother-lpr-drivers-extra
3) Right click on the check box in front of each of those, choose "mark for installation"
4) Click "Apply" and follow the prompts to complete the installation.

Now unplug and plug the printer back in, follow usual autodetection / installation instructions. Your printer should now auto-detect and install properly.

If your scanner doesn't work out of the box please open a new question and subscribe me to it (magicfab).

Hope this helps, let us know if it worked.

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Fabián Rodríguez (magicfab) said : 		#3

I've just checked in Intrepid and it seems the same packages are available, so the same instructions should work.

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CLTrounson (cltrounson) said : 		#4

Thanks for the prompt reply. In UK so only just awake. Tried exactly as suggested, but search for 5440CN finds nothing. I have MFC5449CBlpr-1.0.201,=.i386.rpm on my desktop and I moved a copy of this into a file I called LPD on the desktop.

I'm obviously missing an earlier step.

Cheers

Chris

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Fabián Rodríguez (magicfab) said : 		#5

RPM files are not for Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu.

Can you enable the universe repository and retry the instructions I gave ?

See:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu#Adding%20Ubuntu%20Software%20Repositories
https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/add-applications/C/extra-repositories.html

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devochka224 (zaye-nina) said : 		#6

I have the same problem, but I have a DCP-130c brother printer and when I search for 130c all it says is no package selected...but there is none to select.

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Wil (wiljohnson38) said : 		#7

I have two systems running Ubuntu 9.10 with my Brother 5440cn enabled:

Go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. You may be asked for a password, it's your user password (same as when you login)
I had multiverse and universe enabled.
Check boxes for:
brscan
brother-cups-wrapper-common
brother-lpr-drivers-common
brother-cups-wrapper-extra
brother-lpr-drivers-extra
click apply
Go to system-administration-printing-new-network printers
The printer is found and asks if you want to print a test page

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