I know this thread is very old, but I thought this might be useful for the archives -- and maybe for the original poster as well.
* Bryan on Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 10:48:58PM -0600: > it was easier to copy the file to a Windows box and print. But I'm > tired of having to do this, and have begun researching how to print to > a printer on the network. I recently bought a Brother 9840CDW, which > supports lpd and postscript. It also allows for FTP of files to queue > among other things. It's probably more printer (scanner, fax, copier) > than I need, but I'm tired of HP printers and the toner issues they > have. It is a really nice printer in Windows, and the scanner is most > excellent and fast. And according to the LInux foundation site > (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting) > it works perfectly. Of course, I have to take this with a grain of > salt, because of Linux's willingness to add proprietary drivers, > firmware, etc. Your printer seems very similar to mine, which is a MFC8380DN. I've combed through the manual, and network-wise it supports everything mine does and some more. As Christian correctly said, BRScript3 is just Brother's fancy name for Postscript -- your printer definitely supports it, and I'm convinced that it supports hassle-free lpd operation as well. Since I detest cups with a fiery vengeance, I'm running my printer on my network with lpd only, and it works like a charm. The crucial point is that you have to use a specific lpd queue for the printer to accept the input as Postscript and not just as generic plain text. The manual for your printer omits this passage, but in several others (including mine) it is given. The manual states (look for LPD+Mac operation) that you have to construct the queue name like this: 'BRNxxxxxxxxxxxx_AT', with the x'es replaced by the MAC address of your printer. In my case, the printcap recipe looks like this: | brother|Brother MFC-9840CDW:\ | :lp=:rm=172.23.13.150:rp=BRN001BA968596A_AT:sd=/var/spool/output/brother:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs Obviously, you have to replace IP address and MAC address by your own. If you know your printer's IP address, then ping it and use `arp -a` to get the MAC address. An even simpler recipe is the JetDirect emulation at Port 9100. There you don't have to fiddle around with print queues, and the printer basically just prints everything it sees on that port, as somebody else already mentioned in this thread: | brother|Brother MFC-9840CDW:\ | :lp=9100@172.23.13.150:sd=/var/spool/output/brother:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs As I said, my printer works perfect with both configurations, using OpenBSD's lpd, and if I feed Postscript via lpr it just prints it. It won't eat PDF, but that's just a manner of using `pdf2ps $file - | lpr` I hope somebody might find this still useful and won't disturb the ashes of this thread anymore. :o) s//un
