Brother provides custom drivers on their website, either in source tarball, rpm, or deb form. Packaging Brother printer drivers covers creating PKGBUILDs from the existing RPM packages.
Install the rpmextract package, and extract both rpm packages using . Extracting both files will create a var and a usr directory - move the contents of both directories into the corresponding root directories.
Run the cups wrapper file in . This should automatically install and configure your brother printer.
For some of the drivers 32 bit libraries may need to be installed from multilib.
At this point, you will have the relevant data to get a valid firmware download link from Brother. The file should look similar to the one below:
Post this file to Brother:
In you will find a tag that contains the firmware download URL. Next, download the firmware, push it to the printer, and let the printer process it. Before that is done, change the Admin password to something known, it will be used as the user to log into the FTP site (VERY bad practice, do not do this).
With that, the printer will restart, and the latest firmware will be installed and (hopefully) your printing woes will be solved.
You might experience some trouble while using the USB port on certain models.
Brother provides a shell script to create udev rules to prevent the use of IPP-over-USB. This might solve USB printing problems but means that you need to use the legacy LPR driver. See the FAQ article.
There are many possible drivers for Canon printers. Many Canon printers are supported by Gutenprint and foomatic-db-ppds. Some of Canon's LBP, iR, and MF printers use a driver supporting the UFR II/UFR II LT/LIPSLX protocols, #UFRII . Others use the #CARPS, or #cnijfilter (cnijfilter2), or Canon CAPT drivers.
Some Canon printers will use a similar setup to the iP4500, so consider modifying the cnijfilter-ip4500 package for other, similar printers.
Many LBP, iR, and MF printers use a protocol that has had several names over the years: UFR II, UFR II LT, LIPSLX. There are multiple packages for these printers in AUR, and at least the imageCLASS MF4570dn is reported to only work with the older v3.70 version. The i-SENSYS MF633C is confirmed to work with the 6.00 version.
cnrdrvcups-lb v 6.10: latest version built from source
cnrdrvcups-lb-bin v 6.00: binary build that allows choosing between repackaging rpm or deb build.
ufrii-print 3-1 : binary build that repackages the .deb archive from canon . pkgver does not reflect the driver version but the 3-1 uses version 6.20
Older versions
cndrvcups-lb-bin v3.70: uses Canon provided binaries with location/config adjustments to make them work on Arch Linux
cndrvcups-lt v5.00: uses Canon provided binaries for other printers (e.g. LBP6030).
Some of Canon's printers use Canon's proprietary CARPS (Canon Advanced Raster Printing System) driver. Rainbow Software have managed to reverse engineer the CARPS data format and have successfully created a CARPS CUPS driver, which is available as carps-cups-git. The project's GitHub page includes a list of working printers.
Some Canon printers use Canon's proprietary USB over IP BJNP protocol to communicate over the network. There is a CUPS backend for this, which is available as cups-bjnp.
For recent Canon printers, like the G7000 series, it can be hard to find a valid driver. However, it is possible to use a driverless installation using IPP Everywhere.
If you have installed avahi, CUPS should be able to detect your printer automatically.
However, if it fails, you can always enter your printer settings manually. In CUPS web interface select and enter the IPP URL of the printer. Then at the driver selection screen select.
For the G7000 series the IPP URL is or .
Most models are covered by the official Epson Inkjet Printer Driver for Linux, either epson-inkjet-printer-escpr or epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2, which are sets of CUPS drivers for printers using the ESC/P-R or ESC/P-R 2 specifications of the ESC/P protocol, respectively.
Drivers using the original ESC/P protocol are distributed across multiple packages:
Some printers require a PPD file, which can be obtained from Epson's driver download page. Others are supported through packaged drivers:
epson-printer-utility provides a graphical interface for managing Epson printers. It can be used to check ink levels, view error messages and other printer status information, perform nozzle checks and head cleanings, and manage print settings. The utility integrates with CUPS and is designed to complement the ESC/P-R driver packages.
escputil is part of the gutenprint package, and performs some utility functions on Epson printers such as nozzle cleaning.
This is a printer status monitor which enables to get the remaining ink quantity, to print test patterns, to reset printer and to clean nozzle. It use an intuitive graphical user interface.
This is a GUI using escputil and cups drivers. It supports nearly all USB printer of Epson and displays ink quantity, can clean and align print heads and print test patterns.
Some of the PPD files in epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2 are missing paper size definitions for media that is supported by the printers and the filter. It is relatively straightforward to add the missing media types to the PPD files.
To begin, download the PKGBUILD for the epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2 package, either with an AUR helper or from a snapshot tarball. Once in the directory with the PKGBUILD, download and extract the source of the package by running .
Open the newly-created in a text editor. Identify the section of the file with a lot of lines starting with . Duplicate one such line to modify. For example:
The pair of numbers represents the width and height of the paper in inches, multiplied by 72. Replace all three instances of these numbers with the dimensions of the paper you want to add. For example to add 11"x17" paper, replace the numbers with .
The string identifies the paper. On the left side of the slash, is a magic identifier that the filter uses to identify the paper size. Replace it with the one you want to use. Refer to the array in for a list of possible values. The string to the right of the slash can be set to any human-readable value.
If you want to enable borderless printing for a paper size, prefix the magic identifier string you just found with the letter T. So would become . Additionally, change the four numbers to .
For example, I was able to add 11x17 paper to the PPD for a Workforce 7710 by adding the following lines:
Once you have added your custom size, recompile into a PPD file with ppdc (also from cups):
This will create a ppd file in the directory with a file name derived from the parameter in . You can test this file by uploading it to the CUPS web interface, or install it permanently by overwriting the original PPD file and making the package with .
hplip provides drivers for HP DeskJet, OfficeJet, Photosmart, Business Inkjet, and some LaserJet printers, and also provides an easy to use setup tool. See https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/supported_devices/index for the list of supported printers.
To run the setup tool with the command line frontend:
To set up directly the configuration of a network connected HP printer:
#foo2zjs, mentioned above for supporting some HP printers, also support some Minolta printers.
Note that most Lexmark printers are now supported by CUPS without needing further installation. See also SANE/Scanner-specific problems#Lexmark for Lexmark scanners issues.
Lexmark provides a utility called lexijtools with the drivers.
Lexmark does provide Linux drivers for all their hardware. The following packages are required:
The drivers will need to be downloaded from Lexmark's website. Preferably, create a package (see Creating packages) and install it. Here is a basic PKGBUILD that still needs work but will give an idea of what is required.
Keep in mind you can use the automated installer but doing so will leave the resulting changes untracked. The PPD will be installed into or similar, depending on the printer model.
Install openprinting-ppds-pxlmono-ricoh if your device is black and white, or openprinting-ppds-pxlcolor-ricoh if it is color. Note that Ricoh copiers are sometimes branded as Savin, Gestetner, Lanier, Rex-Rotary, Nashuatec, and/or IKON. So, if you have a device bearing one of these brands, it may be supported by these drivers as well.
SG or GX series printers requiring RPCS drivers may be suppported by ricoh-rpcs-cups-bin, which provides PPDs and needed filter programs found on the Japanese Ricoh website.
Since 2016, or 2017, Samsung is no longer in the printers/scanners business. As of 2019, HP partially support some of Samsung printers/scanners. Before 2016, Samsung was a major player. Which is why there are still many Samsung machines around. In addition, Linux, and cups, keep evolving. The bottom line of all this is that supporting Samsung products is at a flux.
A major site for information about Samsung printers/scanners is Samsung Unified Linux Driver Repository. Despite its name, it is not affiliated by Samsung (HP). Neither it is devoted only to samsung-unified-driver. Yet the actual drivers suggested are the closed source from Samsung (HP). , on the other hand, also encompass Windows and Mac. It might be the first stop to get a driver for a Samsung printer and scanner as it, or was, claim to support practically every one of these. Note that includes software that can stand on its own, not tied to cups. If you can not get the printer to work with cups, you might try this route.
You should also note that many Samsung printers support PostScript. Chances are that it will work with CUPS generic postscript printer, especially if it is only black & white and only printer, without a scanner added to it. Generic driver may be missing functionality or limited, for example in their support for duplex, color control, and resolution settings, and print quality may be lower.
Once you have downloaded the drivers, execute the driver installer and accept the licence:
Note that the driver is 32 bit, so some 32 bit libraries will be required on an x86_64 system: lib32-libpng12, lib32-zlib, lib32-libjpeg6-turbo, lib32-libcups, lib32-libxext, lib32-libx11, lib32-gcc-libs, lib32-libstdc++5
For the scanner, create an directory if it does not already exist, because it is needed by the installer:
Now install the driver:
Again, on an x86_64 install, 32 bit libraries will be needed.
FujiXerox does not support Linux on this model. A slightly adapted custom driver has been found to work out of the box.
To install the tarball, run:
This Xerox printer should work with IPP Everywhere.
The PPD file is still available in the AUR if needed. Double-sided duplex printing in the PPD file must be enabled with a special flag passed to .