Brother DCP L2520D on armhf
Pros
- auto duplex
- printer+scanner=copier
- driver support for linux
- Cheap ($175)
- Laser printer
Cons
- No network (see below for why this might not be a con)
- No colour
- No fax
Confguration
Brother provide a driver install tool that that was released in 2018 but still lives in the glory days of sys-v and initscripts. The script makes for a fun read on a rainy afternoon. Chinese users can also enjoy the script. The script tries to do the right thing so if you are not steeped in Linux lore and just want the damn thing to work on x86, give it a go.
Brother also kindly provides deb and rpm packages for all the components separately. There are three components that can be configured.
Printer
You need the LPR and cupswrapper drivers. The packages install
themselves into /opt/brother.
Herein lies the first wrinkle. The drivers are for x86. But there is a
brlaser github repo
and this is packaged in Debian as printer-driver-brlaser. At the
time of writing, version 4-1 was in buster and 5-1 was released. A
diversion to salsa allowed me to proceed:
git clone https://salsa.debian.org/printing-team/brlaser.git
curl -L https://github.com/pdewacht/brlaser/archive/v5.tar.gz -o brlaser_5.orig.tar.gz
cd brlaser
debuild -uc -us
Install the resulting printer-driver-brlaser_5-1_armhf.deb. You will
also need cups.
Make the cups webinterface listen on a public interface with
sudo cupsctl --remote-admin --share-printers
Add your user to the lpadmin group. Restart cups. cups uses PAM to
authenticate users.
Scanner
This is harder on armhf. Brother provides drivers for just x86. A
few years ago Brother (accidentally?) made the source available for
brscan. This is no longer the case on the brother website. However,
some enterprising French folks have saved the
sources
on github.
Another option would be to use qemu to run the amd64 binary. You might find this guide relevant.
I haven’t tried either. Ars longa, vita brevis.
Scan key tool
Yet to look at this.