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generic or PCL print drivers: a case the brother MFC-7860dw

Posted: 13 Jan 2012, 03:25
by francois
A very good method to provide printer capabilities to your linux box is to use the gutenscript-postscrip method:
http://porteus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=822

However, it happens that your manufacturer or that the specific printer driver will not be there. Sometimes trying some printers drivers for other specific printers with some make number next to yours might just do the trick. At other times this might not work.

The best thing to do is then to investigate to get the generic equivalent or PCL. PCL or printer command langage as evolved for hp printers, but has also been adoped by other manufacturers. The PCL printers have evolved from PCL 1 to PCL 6 yet. For description of their differential functionalities, see:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/hppclhist.html

A case example of a recent brother printer that is not listed in CUPS list for the brother manufacture is the case of the MFC-7860dw. An equivalent printer for this printer is the MFC-8220. However, depending on the gutenscript and postscript packages that you have, you might not even find this equivalent in the list (e.g., ghostscript-9.00-i486-2.xzm, ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11-noarch-1.xzm and gutenprint-5.2.6-i486-1.xzm).

The thing to do will be to look for the PCL characteristics of your printer. In the case of the brother MFC-7860dw, searching the brother site you get to know in the non-linux section that this is a PCL 5e or PCL 6 generic printer compatible printer:
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/BS ... ll&Cat=101

Give us here the PCL generic printer equivalent for your printer. I will compile a table for the PCL equivalent of the porteus community members as soon as there is a few.