Hendrik Boom <hendrik@???> writes:
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 05:43:10PM +0100, Rainer Weikusat wrote:
>> Hendrik Boom <hendrik@???> writes:
>>
>> [Brother printer]
>>
>> > I did manage to get the printer going. I should have mentionned long
>> > ago what the final problem was.
>> >
>> > It turns out I was trying to print a pdf to a postscript printer. I
>> > thought that pdf was a specialized form of postscript, the way inkscape
>> > files are a specialized form of svg. Turns out that was completely
>> > wrong.
>>
>> This suggests that something is wrong with the driver/ input filter
>> setup. That's supposed to convert the input file to something the
>> printer understands. I can print PostScript, PDF and a number of kinds
>> of files just fine.
>
> I'm using the driver from Brother, and lpr from lprng. I found the
> lprng-doc package. I suppose the next thing is to read it,

My (working) /etc/printcap looks like this:

DCP7010:\
        :mx=0:\
        :sd=/var/spool/lpd/DCP7010:\
        :sh:\
        :lp=/dev/usb/lp0:\
        :if=/usr/local/Brother/lpd/filterDCP7010:

if= is the input filter. That's the program (usually a shell script
invoking other programs) supposed to convert the input data to something
the printer understands. A quick test to see if this works as desired
would be to redirect printing to a file.

1. Change lp= line

[rw@doppelsaurus]/tmp#sudo ed /etc/printcap <<TT
> /:lp=/s/=.*:/=\/tmp\/pr:
> wq
> TT

149
        :lp=/tmp/pr:\
149

2. Create output file

touch /tmp/pr
sudo chown daemon.daemon /tmp/pr

3. Tell lpd to re-read the configuration

sudo lpc reread

Afterwards, an attempt to print a PDF (via lpr) will write the
pre-processed data to /tmp/pr. The lpq command can be used to check the
status of the print jop while this is happening.

According to

http://support.brother.com/g/b/spec.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hl3170cdw_all

the printer you're using supports both PostScript3 and PCL6. Guesses at
the cause of the printing failure could be "filter produces PCL and
printer wants PostScript" or "filter doesn't produce output".