Printr?

[Robert Bonomi]

> Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:16:48 -0700
> From: Gary Kline <kline at thought.org>
> To: FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
> Subject: Printr?
>
>
>  folks,
>
>  i sent a couple freebsd questions days ago and did not bcc myself.  i 
>  never saw the post nor got any response.  anyway, new  one:  is there 
>  any way of getting my 'brother HL-3040CN' color laser printr to work.  i 
>  have mucked with it for >> 48 until i am ready to [[ dunno, really ]].  
>  i guess return it and buy one that just works with cups.

Advice: *READ* the specifications.  Make sure the printer 'speaks' (or, at a 
minimum 'emulaes') at at least _one_ "standard' page-layout language -- PCL,
or (*preferably*) Postscript.  The HL-3040cn specs expressly _disclaim_ such,
to wit:

   "Emulation 						N/A(Host-Based only)
    Resident Fonts
	PCL 						N/A
	BR-Script 3 (PostScript 3 language emulation) 	N/A"

This _should_ have told you to "run away'.


>  this 3040cn is seriously low-end, but if any of you have one Working, 
>  i'd seriously like to know what you did.  i'm using whatever CUPS we've 
>  got with  7.3.


Odds are that you are SOL.

The HL-3040CN is what is charitably called a "winprinter".  That is, it
is a *dumb* imaging device that requires _everything_ be done on the 
host computer, using a "vendor-provided" device driver.  Brother provides
drivers for Windows, MacOS, and a CUPS-based driver executable for Linux.

The odds of getting _that_ executable to work on FreeBSD are not good.
With a fulll Linux emulation environment, maybe.