Brother MFC-7420 under Linux without the proprietary Brother drivers

masterofpc — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:25:14 +0000

So, today I found out a very interesting thing…I wondered for a long time if I could connect my printer (MFC-7420) to a non-x86 Linux machine (SPARC!) to have a print server. Well I failed…I failed again, but here’s how I eventually succeded:
Let’s take a look at what the filterMFC7420 CUPS wrapper (from the official Brother-Linux-Package for the MFC7420) does when it gets a file to print:
When you pass a ps file through the /usr/local/Brother/lpd/psconvert2 and then through rawtobr2 out comes a data file of an unknown type. But if you look at it with a hex editor, you see the following:
%-12345X@PJL @PJL JOB NAME="Brother HL-XXX" @PJL SET RAS1200MODE = OFF @PJL SET RESOLUTION = 600 @PJL SET ECONOMODE = OFF @PJL SET SOURCETRAY = TRAY1 @PJL SET MEDIATYPE = REGULAR @PJL SET ORIENTATION = PORTRAIT @PJL SET PAPER = LETTER @PJL SET PAGEPROTECT = AUTO @PJL ENTER LANGUAGE = PCL E&u600D*t600R*b1030m5021w
This is crazy! The rawtobr2 binary just somehow translates the postscript file to some GDI/PJL-language-file! And it seems that they used the same language as for the HL-XXXX series of printers….this means, we could have full linux support without the proprietary Brother drivers. Which then means….my printer could run on my SPARC machines
Later, I proved this is really true:
Take one MFC-7420. Connect it through USB to a computer running Linux. Start the CUPS service. With a browser, go to http://localhost:631 – Administration tab. And click on Find new printers. Follow the instructions and then as printer driver select “Brother HL-5050 Foomatic/hl1250″ (the foomatic package needs to be installed!!) then finish. Set the printer options and print a test page
Hurray! We have it!

NetBSD rc-system

masterofpc — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:42:14 +0000

I’ve wondered how NetBSD does its startup-things, like the Linux init.d/rcx.d system. Here’s how:

You have the /etc/rc.conf file. In this file you write a name of a ‘init’-script (don’t know how it’s called in NetBSD) and then “=YES”. The system reads the file at startup and start all x=YES services. Easy

Lets take a look at eg sshd! If you want to have it start up at system startup, you append “sshd=YES” to your /etc/rc.conf. Finished.

First NetBSD steps

masterofpc — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:12:34 +0000

Recently, I’ve installed netbsd on my Sun Ultra 10 (UltraSPARC IIi 440MHz). Stay put on how to make it usable

Masterofpc's Blog

Brother MFC-7420 under Linux without the proprietary Brother drivers

NetBSD rc-system

First NetBSD steps