[SOLVED] Linux can't talk to Brother MFC-J870dw

I have been going crazy trying to get my printer to work with Zorin or any linux distro. It is a Brother MFC-J870dw. I can add the printer and it is detected under the printer/system settings however when I try to print it is like it goes to a black hole.

I tried removing and adding the printer several times
I went to Brother and got .deb drivers from. Zorin warns me they are of "poor quality" but I override and I think it installs them.
Nothing has helped.
The printer works fine on Win Vista. I installed the software on the CD and tell it it is hooked to the printer's USB port and the computer and printer are able to communicate and print
On linux it seems it can receive information from the printer but not send.
Simple Scan on the other hand cannot detect the scanner at all.

Hi,

check out this link and see if you can find a way to install the printer using info from the Brother page:

http://voices.yahoo.com/the-retail-deta ... 31276.html

Have you updated fully?:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

I don't have a Brother printer so I cannot be of much more help sorry!.

Is your printer the "MFC-8870DW " model?.

See also:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BrotherDriverPackaging

Regards Wolfman

Brother drivers are all for 32 BIT. - If you are using Zorin 64 bit, tell Wolfman. - He can supply a line for 'terminal' that will get the drivers to run. Many Brother printer drivers are in Synaptic. RGDS.

Hi,

yes indeed as the previous poster pointed out, see this part of the post install guide:

Add 32 Bit support on 64 Bit systems:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2054

Regards Wolfman

Thanks all I managed to get it to work. I had to install the drivers from Brother using the .deb files and terminal commands for both the printer and scanner and then for the scanner I had to go into the Sani rules file and add some lines. A pain in the rear.

specifically I had to download a driver and wrapper for both the printer and scanner then use this command for each
sudo dpkg -i --force-all FILENAME

Then I had to open Open "/lib/udev/rules.d/40-libsane.rules" file as a root and add the following lines

# Brother scanners
ATTRS{idVendor}=="04f9", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"

Someone should alert the developers in charge of Ubuntu drivers. It should not be that difficult to get a printer/scanner running

Hi,

glad to hear you are up and running.

I must point out that Ubuntu like all other distro's are reliant on the software sources provided by the devs of the various printer companies and at best, can only supply workarounds for them!.

I will mark this as solved!.

Regards Wolfman