Why does Kubuntu find my printer as driverless and Manjaro KDE does not?

Support Printers
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We just purchased a Brother_MFC-L9610CDN_series printer because it has manufacturer linux drivers; at least that is the way I understood it.

They have rpm and deb drivers, no arch. I have CUPS installed and running and the printer is identified through the WIFI card but there is not a driver listed specifically for this printer. There are many returned in the list, including MFC but no MFC-L9610; at least I don’t see one.

The rpmtoarch application reads to first try debtap-mod when there is a deb driver. Is this the correct way? It does not generate confidence to read “The converter will not always be able to install in a way that the program works correctly, but the level of success is higher than I expected to achieve.”

So, I made a Kubuntu bootable drive to see if I could install a deb driver and how the printer would work with it. When the ISO was loaded and System Settings → Printers opened, the printer was visible and listed as driverless; and it worked like that. I don’t know if all the options were available or not because I’ve never seen this printer before on any OS.

I tried to install the deb driver anyway, following the instructions, but it didn’t appear to be as good as the driverless option; but I’m not sure it worked perfectly because of a messsage about not finding a lib usb 1.04 something that I can’t recall at the moment.

My question is, why does the driverless option not appear in system settings or CUPS in Manjaro KDE? Is there a a specific location to look for it other than those mentioned already?

Also, we have an Epson Artisan 1430 that we could print from only through the USB cable in Manjaro but in Kubuntu it was immediately located as a network printer and prints, and it appears that it is the same Gutenprint driver.

I have Kubuntu running on an old laptop and Manjaro on my desktop, open at the same time, and the results for locating printers are different.

Am I doing something wrong in Manjaro or is this simply a debian versus arch difference?

I’ve read over several similar questions but did not find an answer beyond that the poster, through one or another method, got something to simply print, not that they were able to access the full print utilities of their printer as would be in the manufacturer supported driver.

Thank you for considering my questions.

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Probably something to do with avahi not being active by default?
If nothing scans the network, nothing can be discovered.

But that is just speculation from reading similar topics.
I do not own such a network capable printer printer myself and thus have zero personal experience.

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Good question.

Quite possibly; however that is only one component involved.

@Gary1 Do you have the avahi-daemon.socket and cups.socket enabled?

Both aforementioned sockets will trigger the related services.

I would check the status of the related sockets and services on Kubuntu and Manjaro KDE to compare; i.e.,

systemctl status <insert socket or service name here>

Please let us know the results.

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You did check if you have the meta package manjaro-printer and its optional dependencies installed?

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Except, perhaps for the IPP Everywhere Brother printer, what all of you have suggested were the issues–and all my user error.

I had CUPS installed and manjaro printer but I think I left out the socket and path parts and only turned on the service. After adding those and restarting the avahi service, the Epson printer is immediatley found in CUPS as a network printer and there are now far more options for setting items regarding the bleed allowance and color settings that did not appear before when connected by USB cable.

For the Brother, I don’t know if it would be found as driverless in System Settings but it appeared in CUPS several times, one of which was labeled driverless. It has few setting but that is likely correct.

Thanks you all for pointing me to my errors.

I’m quite glad it worked out because I did not want to mess with converting rpm and deb packages and would’ve likely messed that up too.

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Printer is not listed as driverless on IPP Everywhere™ Printers - Printer Working Group, and Brother provides Linux drivers in .rpm and deb format, so printer is not fully driverless

But it can still work without drivers over network

IPP Everywhere Frequently Asked Questions - Printer Working Group

What Computers/Devices Support IPP Everywhere™?

All computers running CUPS 1.5 or later support IPP Everywhere, which includes all major Linux distributions, ChromeOS, Open Solaris, *BSD, and macOS®. In addition, most mobile devices now support printing via IPP using IPP Everywhere or a related vendor standard such as AirPrint® or Mopria®.

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@nikgnomic Thank you. You provided me that link “a few questions ago” and I checked there at the start and saw only four Brother printers listed, and was confused to find it in CUPS; but I think I understand a bit now. CUPS, as seen on localhost:631, lists the IPP Everywhere because it’s part of CUPS; and System Settings does not list it because it’s not really an IPP Everywhere printer?

Do you know if “works without a driver” affects print quality? I’ve been staring at pages printed on an HP (true laser) with hplip and comparing to those of this Brother (LED laser) and trying to figure out if the quality is different. The HP laser looks a bit crisper (just text) but not really sure; and, if it is different, I don’t know if it is the driver (or lack of one) or simply the quality of laser versus LED laser.

Perhaps, I better try that Kubuntu USB again and see what printer options are provided with the deb driver installed and compare to what CUPS lists as IPP Everywhere. Some of the same settings can be set on the printer screen directly but I don’t know if the settings in CUPS override those at the specific instance of printing. There are many more settings in CUPS for the HP with hplip than for the Brother, and the Brother is about three times the cost of the HP–whether or not that means it should have about the same settings, I don’t know.

I’m not in the printing business but part of my work involves a degree of desktop publishing and I need to get this correct.

Thanks again for the information and not leaving me to go on thinking the issue was fully resolved…

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I installed Kubuntu on a different machine and the Brother deb drivers. CUPS listed more print options compared to the driverless option but not one of them seems to make a bit of difference on the actual printed page. Quality fine/normal and enhanced black text made no observable differences to my eyes anyway in the deb driver or compared to the driverless option that doesn’t have those same settings.

So, it was a waste of time.

Also, I tried to use the debtap package prior to this and it succesfully converted one driver but not the others provided by brother. But not going to try to install them since they seem to provide nothing over the IPP Everywhere version.

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so, to translate it:
you didn’t even try?

Ubuntu is usually several versions behind Arch/Manjaro …

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If the deb drivers don’t add anything more than IPP Everywhere on a debian-based system (Kubuntu), can converting the same manufacturer-provided deb driver to arch add something in Manjaro? Is not the best possible outcome a full conversion to exactly what it does on a debian system?

If they would have converted successfully in debtap, I would’ve tried them first on Manjaro. Since they did not, I tried on a debian system to see what best outcome could be expected in order to decide if trying to figure out why they didn’t convert would be worthwhile.

Am I misunderstanding?

Can Manjaro be ahead of Ubuntu in how a converted deb driver communicates with a printer?

These aren’t meant to be rhetorical smart alec questions. I simply don’t understand. Thanks.

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No.
on par - the very same
that is the best (and only) outcome you can expect.

… a driver does what a driver does …

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Based on my experience, the proprietary drivers / programs usually add functionality, but not quality. Stuff like support for the hardware copy button on a scanner instead of clicking scan and print on the screen or the ink levels shown in the taskbar instead on the small monochrome display on the printer itself.
Convenience stuff that is in many cases not worth the hassle and risk of bugs and crashes and breakage trying to convert and force that “driver/wrapper” that is non native.

But the quality of print will not change - it uses the same printer language in both cases.

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