Printer setup (BR-Script3, PCL6, PDF 1.7, LPR/LRD and port 9100)

A

Alfatrion

I am looking for some tips on setting up my printer. It is an brother MFC-L2710DW printer. It comes with support for "PCL6, BR-Script3, PDF Version 1.7" and "LPR/LPD, Custom Raw Port/Port9100" [1].

I have a really hard time getting it to work. According to this post [2] for a similar printer [3] and this post [4] setup should be easy and the printer should accept text and ghostscript. I would think it should accept PDF too since it has support for PDF 1.7. I am wondering about what I am doing wrong. Any tips would me much appreciated!

LDP
I have followed the handbook on the LDP setup [5] but had no luck on printing the test lines

In my /etc/printcap I had both:
Code: 
lp:\
        :lp=:rm=192.168.1.107:rp=raw:\
        :sh:\
        :sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:\
        :lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:
Code: 
lp:\
        :lp=9100@192.168.1.107:\
        :sh:\
        :sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:\
        :lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:

Testing
I have tested it with
printf "1. This printer can print.\n2. This is the second line.\n" | lpr
printf "%%\!PS \n /Helvetica findfont 18 scalefont setfont 72 432 moveto (PostScript printing successful.) show showpage \004" | lpr
Both commands result in no prints.

When the printer is turned off 'lpc status all' shows
lp:
queuing is enabled
printing is enabled
2 entries in spool area
sending to 192.168.1.107
Click to expand...

and when the printer turned is turned on 'lpc status all' shows
lp:
queuing is enabled
printing is enabled
no entries in spool area
printer idle
Click to expand...

Direct printing
I also tried direct printing
nc 192.168.1.107 9100 < doc.txt | the display indicates the printer is receiving but then nothing happens
nc 192.168.1.107 9100 < doc.pdf | some blank pages rolled out the printer
nc 192.168.1.107 9100 < doc.ps | the display indicates the printer is receiving but then nothing happens

I have used a PDF created with Google Docs and created the ps file using pdf2ps.

References
[1] https://support.brother.com/g/b/spec.aspx?c=gb&lang=en&prod=mfcl2710dw_us_eu_as
[2] https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2014-May/258008.html
[3] https://support.brother.com/g/b/spec.aspx?c=gb&lang=en&prod=hl3070cw_all
[4] https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/printing-in-freebsd.71954/post-437439
[5] https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/printing-lpd.html#printing-lpd-filters
 
I think you have been misled down the wrong path on the UK Brother site. PCL6, BR-Script3 and PDF v1.7 is only used by 2730 or 2750 in this series.
Emulation
  • (DCP-L2550DN/MFC-L2730DW/MFC-L2750DW)
    PCL6, BR-Script3, PDF Version 1.7
Click to expand...
The same model on the US site shows GDI emulation only.
https://www.brother-usa.com/products/mfcl2710dw#specification
Click the print drop down.

You should be able to get this running in lpd by filtering it through brlaser.
 
Check in the printer what emulation is selected, since no prints were generated by yours tests, it may be because it has configured PCL6 emulation or even GDI as Sheper said

Depending the emulation configured in the printer, You may need also a filter

By the way, you shouldn't have the 2 printers with the same name and same spool directory, also I recommend you stay with the first configuration (LPD/LPR protocol)
 
I've been mostly using the laserjet-emulation on most brother printers and used the generic laserjet PCL driver. This usually works out-of-the-box, sometimes with some minor limitations.
What also works is extracting the ppd from a linux or mac driver package from the manufacturers website. This way I'm printing e.g. on a Brother HL-3260N (via BR-Script3), which had some weird behaviour via postscript and laserjet emulation and I also got a Kyocera FS-C5150DN to properly print double-sided documents with the KPDL driver.

The problem with pdf is, that printers usually follow the pdf-standard, but any file where Adobe products were involved aren't correct, standard-conformant pdfs, so the behaviour of most printers when presented such botched pdf files is best described as "undefined". We've had kyoceras that completely locked up or endlessly spew out garbage until they were power-cycled (sometimes several times...) and had their queue manually purged when you'd send them pdfs directly. Brother printers thankfully mostly just do nothing and/or give some cryptic error messages.
 
Thank you all for your help. I will look into cups for a short time, just to see if I can get it working.

I asked the salesperson explicitly for a Postscript, PCL6, PDF 1.7 and scan to FTP/SMB, but did not get any of that. I believed I did though. I will return the printer.
 
I was able to get the printer working. I needed to install cups and cups-filtering. It was an breeze after that.

The MFC-L2750DW scans to FTP and prints using LPD (the two tests and first configuration).
 
To clarify, LPD it's a protocol to communicate PC and printer, CUPS use the protocol IPP, this protocols substituted the serial, parallel or USB protocols

This protocol are used to send the file to be printed, but the file need to be in a specific language (PostScript, PCL, ESC/P, etc..) that the printer can understand
 
Thanks. The only issue I have is that I can not use the FreeBSD lpr from KDE. So I have both lpr and cups configuration. Both work.
 
Alfatrion said:
The only issue I have is that I can not use the FreeBSD lpr from KDE. So I have both lpr and cups configuration.
Click to expand...
The cups developers used the same command to print as LPD. The difference between the 2 is the path:
/usr/bin/lpr for LPD
/usr/local/bin/lpr for CUPS

There are work-arounds to print from your KDE apps.
In general, it is better to choose one or the other.

http://menzonius.nl/index.php/using...freebsd-to-print-from-the-console-using-cups/

The reason you cannot print fro KDE4/KDE5 is that the Qt4 tool kit dropped the lpd back end. GTK3 did the same. You can still install print/gv, graphics/zathura-pdf-mupdf for a gui front end that prints *.ps/*.pdf to lpr.
 
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