Hacker News Reader

Comment by calcifer | Hacker News Reader

You seem to be conflating Linux support with FOSS support. They have nothing to do with each other.

Even if I was, don't you think that good Linux support would require the drivers running on architectures different from x86? For example you can't use this printer on a Raspberry Pi: https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadtop.aspx?c=us_ot&lan...

You get a choice of a deb or an rpm packaging the following blob:

> brcupsconfpt1: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.2.5, stripped

> For example you can't use this printer on a Raspberry Pi

very uncommon use case...

Not really. RPi printing server setups are somewhat common.

You can normally use a generic PCL or PS driver (or another brother cups driver), if it's a Brother laser printer. If it's an inkjet, YMMV.

Brother MFCs support IPP Everywhere (aka AirPrint), so you shouldn't need drivers in the first place. If the UI doesn't let you use the IPP Everywhere driver, you can add it with

    lpadmin -p myprinter -E -v "ipp://<address>/ipp/port1" -m everywhere

The printer's web interface should give you the exact IPP/AirPrint URL to use.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com