Epson Printer Frustration - Installed, Seen .. Not working!

[m_pav]

I wonder if the OP linwinux has left the camp, he seems to have gone all quiet, but to be fair, he has a point re: MX17.

I've been using Epson printers for years now and I understand his frustrations, MX17 was particularly troublesome where Epson printers were concerned, as was MX18, but it was fixed in 18.2. Just in case the OP returns to read this, I want to say I can help him if he's wiling to listen, but I must first put some things straight .......

1) MX IS NOT Ubuntu and we don't pretend to be. Ubuntu and all of its derivatives, which too many people put so much weight on as being the greater, is the rouge child of Debian who deliberately mix 3 generations to produce a work of fart claiming to be Debian based, but neglecting the truth of their incompatibility.
2) Ubuntu IS NOT Debian compatible, MX isn't 100% compatible either, but we are a heck of a lot closer than the other by virtue of using the direct Debian repos.
3) Ubuntu and all of its derivatives are NOT benchmarks of what a Linux distributions should be, they are flavours, like ice cream and not one I have a taste for.
40 None of the aforementioned give you the choices we do, e.g., do you like SysVinit, so do we and we choose to use it as our default. Do you like SystemD, go ahead and use it, we give you that choice too, can't say that about the mangled rogue child of Debian.

Next, more to the point, the OP (you) mention MX providing non-perfect drivers, this is totally wrong. MX provides a Debian repackaged genuine Epson driver, yes, the GENUINE Epson driver, but finely tuned to match the release it's packaged for. We'll have no more of that MX bundling half baked nonsense!

Reading through your posts, you mentioned plugging in the printer, but you don't specifically say how. Twice you were asked to help us to help you by giving us more information, but instead you prattled on about how much you knew citing Ununtu and some of its derivitaves. You only proved you know Ubuntu, but you don't know Debian, and while you tried to be polite and level headed, you forgot you were asking us for help and twice failed to respond to our kindness when we simply asked if you'd please use our prescribed method of asking for help.

You mentioned plugging in your printer, was that into the AC outlet to power it up, plugging in an Ethernet cable or plugging in a USB cable. We're not mind readers and if you fail to provide the relevant information, then we simply can't help you at all, but I'm willing to assist if you'll only LISTEN.

Do you use USB? Then update the USB database so the source of connection can correctly identify your device. In a terminal, type "sudo update-usbids", then plug your USB cable in.
MX has the genuine Epson drivers preloaded, don't waste time and energy by installing additional drivers, they will install additional print queues and set the WRONG one as default.
Do you connect your device via LAN or WLAN? Spend time to understand the available print queues a print driver uses. There are at least 3 associated with Epson, it appears the OP has chose the wrong one.

[Richard]

Thanks fehlix for the update of the installer.
Currently in the market for a Brother Printer.

HP Laser's worked well for me for many years.
Having HP brick my wife's inkjet model due to aftermarket ink cartridges
pretty much removed HP from consideration for anything in my future.
Bricking their printers due to use of non HP cartridges was poorly thought out.

[hughbert]

... I was speaking of the installer script you mentioned here
... Where is it posted? I must have overlooked it.

@Richard : That might have been a too fast speech for me.
I've been to lazy to find the link to that post ...
But anyway here it comes again slightly adjusted for you ;=)
After the installer have been fetched and chksum verified
it will be extracted and excuted. You'll get some more confirmation
questions, so you can abort anytime.
When you run it again it will not fetch again if still availble localy.
I've checked the installer; it will cover nearly all brother printer available on
the brother support web site. As they do not often change that installer
my script might work for sometime; last change was about 3 years ago before recent version.
Have fun:

Here we go:
Brother-Printer-Installer-Helper Script

filename: brinstaller.sh

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
# set -x
# brinstaller.sh
# by fehlix @ mxlinux,  2016 -2021
# helper script to fetch'n'install latest Brother printer driver
# downloaded from https://support.brother.com/
# and verified with sha512 checksum
#
# filename :brinstaller.sh
# version  : 2.2.2-2-2021-07-10

# changes: 
# New Brother-Installer-Version: 27.12.2017 Version 2.2.0-1
# 
# 24.09.2018 - updated to
#    new Brother-Installer-Version: 13.09.2018 Version 2.2.1-1
#
# 25.09.2018 - added missing 32bit-libs, thanks to davemx
#              lib32z1 lib32ncurses5
#
# 20.05.2019  adjusted to https download link
#
# 18.08.2020  adjusted to new Brother installer version 2.2.2-1.
#
# 10.07.2021  adjusted to new Brother installer version 2.2.2-2

# https://download.brother.com/welcome/dlf006893/linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.1-1.gz
# SHA256SUM
# 4bca9b72ea14b8ffe4a5276e0b881d64f1cb5b7b29bcf06869d2cad90bd95bff  linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.1-1.gz
#BRDATE="04-06-2020"
#BRVERS="2.2.2-1"
# SHA256SUM
# https://download.brother.com/welcome/dlf006893/linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.2-1.gz
# 49f927644865fde29dc7b942fe35e237385330159a77b202d2d6cbce68fc7600  linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.2-1.gz

# 
BRDATE="22-01-2021"
BRVERS="2.2.2-2"
# SHA256SUM
# https://download.brother.com/welcome/dlf006893/linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.2-2.gz
# f8419d5e779e58e79eca2717279463da56de63dc584ce8b62d5b4628274bde44  linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.2-2.gz
# SHA512SUM
# 4e361283057631ad0c14c77fdc9fca08f43626c504666cab954ac856dcb5a7803264792614e3a4cf816568ea51fa68e03dd115313aa4dc209e587610eddf120b  linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.2-2.gz


function usage() {
cat<<USAGE

    Usage: $0 [Brother-Printer-Model]

    This helper script will fetch and install latest 
    Brother printer-installer version $BRVERS dated $BRDATE
    Pass Brother-Model parameter or type at prompt
    like HL-L6400DW, MFC-L9570CDW, DCP-135C

USAGE
}
ME="${0##*/}"
BROTHER="$1"
[ -z "$BROTHER" ] && read -p 'Please enter Brother Model : ' BROTHER
[ -z "$BROTHER" ] && usage && exit 1;
LOCALE_ALL=C read -p "Ready to fetch and install Brother Model '$BROTHER' (Y/n) :" OK
[ -z "$OK" -o "$OK" = "Y" -o "$OK" = "y" ] || { echo "Abborting $0";  exit 1; }

# set -x
#chksum=sha256sum
#CHKSUM="f8419d5e779e58e79eca2717279463da56de63dc584ce8b62d5b4628274bde44"
chksum=sha512sum
CHKSUM="4e361283057631ad0c14c77fdc9fca08f43626c504666cab954ac856dcb5a7803264792614e3a4cf816568ea51fa68e03dd115313aa4dc209e587610eddf120b"

# Please enter Brother Modell Type (e.g. HL-1030, MFC-L9570CDW, HL-L6400DW)
# HL-L6400DW

BRINS="linux-brprinter-installer-${BRVERS}"
BRIGZ=$BRINS.gz
BRURL="https://download.brother.com/welcome/dlf006893/$BRIGZ"
#CHK=$BRIGZ.sha256
CHK=$BRIGZ.sha512

[ -f "$BRINS" -o -f $BRIGZ    ] || { echo wget $BRURL;  wget $BRURL; }
[ -f $BRIGZ  -a -f $CHK ] && rm -f $CHK
echo "$CHKSUM  $BRIGZ" > $CHK
$chksum -c $CHK || { echo "CHKSUM Error: abborting installer" && exit 1; }

[ -f $BRIGZ  ] && [ ! -f $BRINS ] && gunzip -kv $BRIGZ
[ -f $BRINS ] && chmod +rx $BRINS && {
    sudo -k &&  sudo apt-get update
# probaly not needed anymore 
#	[ "$(dpkg --print-architecture)" == "amd64" ] && {
#		sudo apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5
#	}	

    sudo ./$BRINS "$BROTHER"  
    RET=$?
}
#
echo "$ME finished ..."
echo " "
read -p "Press any key to continue..."
exit $RET

+++
EDIT: 2021-07-10: Update to brother-installer version 2.2.2-2 (22/01/21)

I get a syntax error when I attempt to run this script.
brinstaller.sh: 46: Syntax error: "(" unexpected

[fehlix]

I get a syntax error when I attempt to run this script.
brinstaller.sh: 46: Syntax error: "(" unexpected

Yes, that happens if you try to run a bash script with another shell.
"running a script" can be done in different ways, where some ways might be wrong.

If you run a bash script with "sh" ( which is not bash)
like
sh myscript.sh
or
sh ./myscript.sh
you might get an error b/c bash has an extended syntax compared to sh.

You would run a bash script by first make the script executable e.g. with

chmod +x myscript.sh

and run as
./myscript.sh
or
bash ./myscript.sh

Or just extract the tar -archive

tar -xzf brinstaller-2.2.2-2-2021-01-22.tar.gz
and within the created folder run
./brinstaller.sh

[hughbert]

Thanks....I haven't had time to try it yet. I'll post back when I do. I appreciate it.