Switching to Linux

[John Bowden]

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How the heck do you install a dang printer in this stuff............

I got the deb file from Brother............. I have a Brother MFC-5890CN printer attached to my wireless modem............ and in Windows of course its very easy.......... in Kubuntu........... not so much! I installed this file............ then go to add a printer and the crap begins..................

I get to the point where I put in the network address then it asks for PPD file and of course my printer ain't in the list.

I've gone to google and search this and cannot make heads or tails out of it.............why is this so hard? Or am I so dumb?

Help............ or I'm going back to XP forever!

[Oldenburger67]

Hello John,

you may have a look here:

HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies! - Ubuntu Forums

or here

ZEDOnet | TurboPrint Linux | Printer driver for Linux

just click on the english flag on the upper left corner!

good luck to you!

The actual problem is that most Hardware Producers don 't support Linux.
There are only a few manufacturers e.g. HP that provide users with own Linux drivers.
This is not the place to speculate why other manufacturers don't.

Most of the Hardware drivers have to be written by the Linux comunity itself, meaning ordinary people in most cases as you and me, and since there is another life beside the computer it takes time to catch up with the new Hardware.
The modern Linux Generation runs out of the Box in most cases, but in contrast to Windows you have to fiddle a little bit (okay sometimes it is a little bit more fiddling ;-)))
But for us cardboardmodelers that shouldn't be a problem.

I wish you all a nice day

The Oldenburger

[Oldenburger67]

Hello Doug,

did you look here:

Brother Solutions Center : Brother Driver for Linux Distributions

Brother Solutions Center : Brother Driver for Linux Distributions

Brother Solutions Center : Brother Driver for Linux Distributions

I hope i could help you


The Oldenburger

[John Bowden]

Do you have to install both LPR and CUPS drivers?

[Oldenburger67]

Hello Doug,

To answer your question, yes i use a cups driver, but i can't tell you, how to install a brother printer, since i use HP and Canon Printers.
To be exact, i have an HP Laserjet 1000 which ran out of the box.

For my HP Deskjet and my Canon i bought me a Turboprint Driver, since that time all my printer work without problems.

I edited my last post please have a look.

Good Luck

The Oldenburger

[John Bowden]

Well I now show a local printer and tried to add a new network printer but nothing happens when I tried to print to it...............

I guess I'll keep a plugging..............

Thanks Oldenburger!

john

[John Bowden]

Double post .......................sorry

[Oldenburger67]

Hello John,

i made a mistake, i called you Doug the whole time, i 'm sorry!!

I know, sometimes it's really tricky and frustrating getting the Linux system running, but its worth every minute and afterward you feel really great.

I'm sorry when i can't help you with this problem, since i haven't a brother printer. And before i tell you something wrong, i can give you the only advice to search the web for an ubuntu forum you are pleased with and post your question there.
The other is the one i already gave, give Turboprint a try.
ZEDOnet | TurboPrint Linux | Printer driver for Linux
(click on the english flag)

I know it's comercial but i got my printers running perfectly, and you have a try of thirty days before yuo have to decide to buy the driver.

Okay John so far.

The Oldenburger

[ProjectKITT]

John B., glad to hear you are trying Kubuntu & I hope you can get your printer working! I have an HP printer/scanner so I'm crossing my fingers that it will not be too difficult. We like to say in academia that computer science is nothing but workarounds

Here is the most difficult bug I've come across so far: the screen dims and eventually turns off while playing videos in VLC if there is no user input. After trying many, many solutions (all the common and uncommon ones from forums, and VLC settings), I finally figured this out: I have to uncheck the power management settings for dimming and turning off the screen (I have the screensaver off all the time) AND run a wrapper script for VLC. I turn the settings back on afterwards. Not the most elegant but sounds simple enough, however that exact solution wasn't on any of the forums I found (I looked through plenty, trust me!) and so far it's the only one that works on mine.

Not always easy to figure these things out but like Oldenburger suggested, when something works and you know you did it, it's pretty cool!

Originally Posted by jleslie48

I have a collection of software that are just my stable set I work with all the time, and I'm not giving them up. I'm not holding onto them for posterity or anything, I simply have not found any better.

Jleslie, I know exactly what you mean. I saw no reason to upgrade my software so I never bothered. Now with Linux I'll have to; discovering new capabilities in programs I've never used before will be fun no doubt, but truthfully I'm not looking forward to the extra time it will take to get things done while I re-learn what I'm doing.

Originally Posted by eric_son

Not all programs run smoothly on Wine. Pepakura is one of them.
In cases like these, I resort to using Virtualbox.

That's too bad, I like Pepakura... I've been looking on the WineHQ website to get an idea of which programs might work in Wine and which might not. I'm still weighing my options for a 3D modelling program and something to unfold with, any suggestions? I'd like to try out a few

[John Bowden]

Well so far - no joy. I've opened the port in the firewall, but it still will not print ..........yet.

May have to get a buddy to help me out with it.........

Been tweaking it I like Firefox as a browser, and have added a few other things, GIMP, InkScape...... so we'll see.