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Brother DCP-L2540DW Printer/Scanner Fedora Install

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This is a (somewhat grey and ugly printer/scanner) that I picked up recently at a "PC Show" at Singapore Expo.

For an effective price that was less than S200( U200 (~U150), this is a pretty decent deal, particularly since it came with a 2600-page toner, and a hand-trolley to carry it back home with...

Downloads from Brother site

The Brother site has a linux link direct to the RPMs required. Unfortunately, each one requires a separate "EULA" to be clicked-through, which is clunky.

The downloads I needed were :

  • LPR printer driver (rpm package)
  • CUPSwrapper printer driver (rpm package)
  • Scanner driver 64bit (rpm package)

and they can be installed with :

dnf install dcpl2540dw*.rpm brscan4-*.x86_64.rpm

Network setup

Using the control panel on the front of the printer (no Windows/MacOS computer required), one can set up the WiFi SSID, password, and a static IP for the printer itself.

In the following, assume WOLOG that it's set to 192.168.1.8.

Network Printer setup

The installation of the RPM 'helpfully' adds the printer as a device locally connected via USB, which is misleading...

Using the standard printer configuration dialog (in XFCE for me), simply go into the printer and update the settings to be on the network :

  • Type : "LPD/LPR Host or Printer"
  • Host : 192.168.1.8
  • Queue : binary_p1
  • Device URI will become : lpd://192.168.1.8/binary_p1

Network Printer setup pt II

If the Test Page won't print, there's a possibility that you've hit a problem because Brother hasn't got the dependencies right. The following 32-bit library needs to be installed:

dnf install glibc.i686

This problem can (confusingly) be masked if you're computer has Skype installed - since Microsoft did actually get the dependencies correct (which, unfortunately, entails installing a whole bunch of 32-bit files on your otherwise pristene 64-bit computer).

Network Scanner setup

After installing the package (which, I believe should require sane-backends-scanners to be installed beforehand, based on installation error messages about unfound files), the Brother driver also needs to understand that it's a network-attached device.

The Magic command line (not specified in anything from Brother, but found via random internet searches) :

brsaneconfig4 -a name="DCP-L2540DW" model="DCP-L2540DW" ip=192.168.1.8

This then adjusts the settings that can be found in :

/etc/opt/brother/scanner/brscan4/brsanenetdevice4.cfg
# More ideas via :
brsaneconfig4 --help

Hope this helps someone.

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