> Its official print driver isn't just a PPD but has some binary blob Linux executable configured as a filter.
I'm surprised people say no driver is required, auto-recognized out of the box etc. In contrast, I agree with the parent post that Brother requires a very non-standard binary installation that will throw various errors on a clean Intel 64 bit Ubuntu 21.04 LTS installation.
I tried this 4 times with 2 printers, 3 times it did not work and 1 time it worked. Never got WiFi to work on a Brother laser, so had to go by USB, which is annoying.
Edit: Still better than my $450 HP duplex business printer, which stands unused due to forced subscriptions and rejected cardridges. So far, the best experiences I had with a Kyocera b/w laser and Lexware b/w laser (the latter in the office, so I did not install it). Brother is okay, but with random driver fiddling required.
"Never got WiFi to work on a Brother laser"
It will take a bit to enter using the up/down arrow keys, and setting a static IP/mask on the router and printer can be tricky.
Ubuntu has been going through some issues driver wise (glitching after EOL of several legacy repos), and sometimes not every program will render out the right pipe. USB shared printers never seem to work well in linux. Try the native OS printer detection once your network sees the printer mac/ip (LPR mode should work). Note too, some printers disappear/reappear on network change overs.
What is the make/model/year where you can't reach the printer web-page on the IP?
I'm surprised people say no driver is required, auto-recognized out of the box etc. In contrast, I agree with the parent post that Brother requires a very non-standard binary installation that will throw various errors on a clean Intel 64 bit Ubuntu 21.04 LTS installation.
I tried this 4 times with 2 printers, 3 times it did not work and 1 time it worked. Never got WiFi to work on a Brother laser, so had to go by USB, which is annoying.
Edit: Still better than my $450 HP duplex business printer, which stands unused due to forced subscriptions and rejected cardridges. So far, the best experiences I had with a Kyocera b/w laser and Lexware b/w laser (the latter in the office, so I did not install it). Brother is okay, but with random driver fiddling required.