I made the /var/spool/lpd directory manually, since a search of Debian
packages didn't find any package that includes it as part of its
infrastructure. I still think that something's missing, (possibly
something that puts files into this spool queue) but now the package
hl3170cdwlpr-1.1.2-1.i386.deb that I downloaded from Brother's website
installs without problem.

I still don't know how to submit any file to be printed. Presumably it
has to be a .ps or .pdf, since that's what the printer can handle
natively.

But man lpr tells me to specify a destination I have no idea what to
specify here to identify the printer.

>From the man page for lpr, I get the impression that lpr is part of
CUPS. Is that really correct? Wasn't there an lpr command long ago
that wasn't part of CUPS? It seems I remember using something like
it in the days of Unix in the 1970's.

-- hendrik


On Mon, Oct 05, 2015 at 12:35:25PM -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 05, 2015 at 06:02:30PM +0200, Riccardo Boninsegna wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 5:52 PM, Hendrik Boom <hendrik@???> wrote:
> > > Obtaining a driver from Brother's support site as a .deb file, I tried to install it with dpkg:
> > >
> > > root@notlookedfor:/home/hendrik/Download/BrotherPrinterDriver# dpkg -i hl3170cdwlpr-1.1.2-1.i386.deb
> > As the name says, that's an LPR driver.
> >
> > Brother does not make actual drivers for CUPS, only ones for LPR plus
> > a hack to make LPR drivers work in CUPS!
>
> I'd be delighted woth using lpr. But even man lpr tells me about
> CUPS. Has man lpr been suborned by CUPS?
>
> >
> > 1: If you're using an i386 system, you're good to go; if you're using
> > amd64, enable 32 bit compatibility with (as superuser) `dpkg
> > --add-architecture i386 && aptitude update && aptitude install
> > libstdc++6:i386`; if you're using any other architecture, give up!
>
> I have an i386 system. But as I mentioned, using dpkg to
> install the lpr driver failed:
>
> root@notlookedfor:/home/hendrik/Download/BrotherPrinterDriver# dpkg -i hl3170cdwlpr-1.1.2-1.i386.deb
> Selecting previously unselected package hl3170cdwlpr.
> (Reading database ... 118096 files and directories currently installed.)
> Preparing to unpack hl3170cdwlpr-1.1.2-1.i386.deb ...
> Unpacking hl3170cdwlpr (1.1.2-1) ...
> Setting up hl3170cdwlpr (1.1.2-1) ...
> mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/var/spool/lpd/hl3170cdw’: No such file or directory
> chown: cannot access ‘/var/spool/lpd/hl3170cdw’: No such file or directory
> chgrp: cannot access ‘/var/spool/lpd/hl3170cdw’: No such file or directory
> chmod: cannot access ‘/var/spool/lpd/hl3170cdw’: No such file or directory
> root@notlookedfor:/home/hendrik/Download/BrotherPrinterDriver#
>
> So until I get the lpr level working, it won't help much to install the
> lpr compatiility for UPS.
>
> Or is the CUPS lpr compatibility etting in my way with installing an lpr
> driver?
>
> > 2: Download both drivers from
> > http://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hl3170cdw_all&os=128
> > 3: Install "cups-daemon" (the actual print server) and "cups-bsd"
> > (backwards compatibility with LPR command line tools)
>
> These are already installed, presumably with the default iinstall of
> devuan alpha 2.
>
> > 4: Make sure your printer is connected and ready, install the LPR driver
>
> How to I "connect" a network printer that communicates over wifi?
> And this is the step that failed.
>
> > 5: Install the CUPS driver
> > 6: If all went fine, you should have the printer already configured
> > (you may want to visit localhost:631 with a browser to set paper size,
> > etc)!
>
> -- hendrik
>
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