28 July 2008 12 Comments

Installing the Brother MFC-9840CDW on Ubuntu

To install a Brother MFC 9840 CDW printer on Ubuntu, you must:

  1. Download the LPR driver from here
  2. Download the CUPS wrapper driver from here.
  3. Install them.

You can use these commands:


wget http://solutions.brother.com/Library/sol/printer/linux/rpmfiles/lpr_debian/mfc9840cdwlpr-1.0.0-7.i386.deb&lang=English_lpr
wget http://solutions.brother.com/Library/sol/printer/linux/rpmfiles/cups_wrapper/mfc9840cdwcups-1.0.0-7.i386.deb
sudo mkdir /var/spool/lpd
sudo mkdir /usr/share/cups/model
sudo chmod 777 /usr/share/cups/model
sudo dpkg -i --force-all --force-architecture mfc9840cdwlpr-1.0.0-7.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i --force-all --force-architecture mfc9840cdwcups-1.0.0-7.i386.deb
sudo aa-complain cupsd

UPDATE – 22ND NOVEMBER 2008 – ALTERNATIVE METHOD
One blog reader, Hans, has commented that you can just use synaptic to install the printer drivers. I haven’t tried this myself so I would be interested to hear how others get on using this method. Please post a comment if it worked for you!

  • Open up Synaptic Package Manager.
  • Search for 9840 and install the packages.
  • Set it up under System > Printers.

12 Responses to “Installing the Brother MFC-9840CDW on Ubuntu”

  1. Tom 19 August 2008 at 6:09 pm #

    Thanks a lot, it worked :)

  2. philipp 22 August 2008 at 6:54 am #

    Hi

    I tried your explanation on Kubuntu, and it worked flawlessly.

    Thanks for putting it up on the net :-)

    Good luck to you,
    philipp

  3. PaulRay 2 October 2008 at 8:19 am #

    That did the trick! Thank You so much.

  4. Bill 2 November 2008 at 8:14 am #

    I used your explanation in Ubuntu 8.10 for mfc5490cn also. I neglected to include the –force-all, part, however. I see that I also neglected the last sudo aa-complain cupsd command. But I can print perfectly. Should I go back and try to redo this to more perfectly follow your plan?

    Thanks for the only adequate explanation available.

  5. Hans 15 November 2008 at 11:50 am #

    One easier way is to use synaptic. Just search for 9840 and install the packages.

    Set it up with System->Printers If you have problems with access to the printer use http:((localhost:631, set the password in CUPS (adminsitartors one) and start the printer.

  6. smittex 21 November 2008 at 8:07 pm #

    Awesome… I’ve had this for about a week and couldn’t get it installed using the instructions on brother’s site. Btw, I am on a 64-bit CPU running 64-bit Hardy Heron, 2.6.24-21 kernel.

  7. smittex 28 January 2009 at 6:23 pm #

    Had to rebuild my system this weekend. I tried the alternative method this time (Synaptec >> search “9840″ >> install BOTH brother-cups-wrapper-ac and brother-lpr-drivers-ac >> System >> Administration >> Printing >> add printer >> bash >> sudo aa-complain cupsd >> sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart) and everything worked great

  8. bill 10 March 2009 at 4:53 am #

    synaptic worked for me too, installed a mfc-7220 to jaunty 64 bit….tried methods shown at brother and ubuntu forums first without success, synaptic worked right off and was much easier

  9. Thomas 21 March 2009 at 10:29 pm #

    Thanks alot for this one.
    It worked instantly ;)

  10. Prfesser 8 June 2009 at 12:27 am #

    used the synaptic approach to install the 9840 into jaunty. worked perfectly, and in no time at all.

    most excellent.

  11. schildnoeck 13 June 2009 at 11:43 am #

    Thanks alot!

  12. ram 30 September 2009 at 5:02 am #

    Hi,
    I Thank you for the excellent installation guide, which is like magic, I think I learned a lot!


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