Brother HL-2170W

This is a short tutorial on installing the Brother HL-2170W (and the HL-2140) printer with CUPS on Arch Linux. If you previously tried to install the printer in CUPS, remove it. This printer will work a few different ways: with Foomatic, with the HP PCL6 driver, or with cupswrapper. For further info on cupswrapper please see the Brother MFC-440CN guide.

Note: As of July 2011, The foomatic/ljet4 driver using IPP has been shown to be really successful on most Arch setups, please attempt that first.

Setup printer and CUPS

This printer has a web-based interface. To avoid some extra Google queries, the HL-2170w web interface default username is 'admin' and the default password is 'access'.

It is recommended that you configure the HL-2170W to have a static IP so that CUPS will always work with it (steps not detailed in this article).

The needed pdd/drivers are available from this device from the OpenPrinting Database. There is no need to directly browse to this page or download ppd files directly; it has been given for reference only.

1. Install CUPS and Foomatic:

   # pacman -S cups foomatic-db foomatic-db-engine foomatic-db-nonfree foomatic-filters ghostscript

2. Start the cups daemon:

   # rc.d start cupsd

3. Optionally edit your rc.conf to start cups on boot:

   DAEMONS=(... @cupsd ...)

4. Open a web browser to http://localhost:631/
5. Click the Add Printer button on the Administration tab.

Continue to one of the following subsections:

Using IPP (recommended method)

This method details how to connect to your printer over a LAN or WLAN.

1. Select IPP from the list.
2. In the 'Connection' field, type

   ipp://THE_PRINTER_IP/ipp/port1

3. In the next form, give the printer a unique name (no spaces and the name be must unique from any identical printers), and select "Brother" from the printer make field.
4. Select "Brother HL-2170W Foomatic/ljet4e (en)" from the list of drivers.
5. Configure the default options on the next page to your liking.

Using the HP PCL6 driver (alternative method 1)

This driver is not ideal, but it works.

1. Click the Add Printer Button (fill out the form) (click Continue)
2. Select Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) from the drop down menu (click Continue)
3. In the Device URI field add the following line:

   http://printer:631/ipp/port1

   Where printer is the IP address or DNS name of your printer (click Continue)
4. Select "HP" under Make (click Continue)
5. Select HP LaserJet Series PCL 6 CUPS (en) (click Add Printer)

Troubleshooting

Some simple reminders

1. Sometimes if you get simple errors like "spool not ready" or "ipp backend failed", there is a good chance you have to resume the printer by selecting the Maintenance drop down and selecting Resume Printer.