[clug] Brother printers - very Linux friendly [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Owen]

> Hi all,
>
> Someone at a community group I do SysAdmin for went and bought a random
> laser
> printer and called me in to install it. Fearing the worst, I was
> expecting a Windows
> only MFD that would be a complete basket case or an up-hill battle at
> best.
>
> As it turns out, the Brother 2040 has a bunch of Linux drivers on their
> web site, including
> a CUPS driver in a .deb that I was able to blat onto an Ubuntu desktop
> using dpkg -i. There
> was also source tarballs were I so inclined.
>
> I don't know yet how well it works as someone threw the parallel cable
> out with the old
> printer, but I was very pleasantly surprised by the comprehensive
> support on offer.



They work real well. The 2040 has been seen to go for as little as $59,
currently $79 in Dick Smith. I know someone who bought a few of them as
the cartridges were cheaper to but that way!

I have installed the drivers on a couple of distros, needed a bit of
manual intervention on one because it got placed in a "wrong" directory.



Owen