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Installing Brother Print Drivers on Linux Mint 17

I've had HP printers for the last several printers we've owned and their Linux support has been spot on. Basically Linux can "see" the printer directly and the print drivers have been one of the options listed from the CUPS print driver options.

I have grown unimpressed with HP as a company however and I've grown in appreciation of the Brother printers. We purchased a Brother MFC-J5620DW for a good price. The hardware is very nice from a cursory inspection and it installed quickly: toner, power, self-check, hook up to the network. Easy peasy.

I opened up my Linux laptop and went to add a printer. There it was in the list! Sweet. This is going to be quick. When I went to select the Brother Print Driver however, this model (or a similar model) wasn't in the list. Hmmmm. I had it search the Internet for downloadable drivers and it didn't find any. More hmmmm. I found one site that allowed for downloading drivers for Linux ... but it must have been an old area of their website. It didn't even have our model of printer.

Here's what worked:

  1. Go to this page: Brother Product Search and type in your model number, and click "Search". NOTE: the other option is "Linux (rpm)" for Redhat and Fedora fans!
  2. If your model is found, click the "Downloads" link. It detected my OS and automatically selected the "Linux" option. I chose the "Linux (deb)" installer. Click "Search".
  3. Download the "LPR printer driver (deb package)". Install this using the package manager. The file for my printer was 2.8MB.
  4. Download the "CUPSwrapper printer driver (deb package)" which is only 0.01 MB. I think I can handle that download. I had it automatically open the package manager and install the package.
  5. Go to "Printers" on your machine and go through the process to "Add" a printer. It was able to see the networked printer, and it found the drivers automagically. Set print mode to "Fast" (saves ink and time!) and then choose "Print Test Page".

Works like a champ. I am very happy with my Brother printer. I hope this helps you out!