Brother DCP-1612W Is there any chance it will print and scan well?

fufukauliza

fufukauliza

Hi everyone,
I need to do a clean install of FreeBSD 14.3 and my Wi-Fi printer is a Brother DCP-1612W laser.
I wanted to ask if you think I have any chance of getting it to work well for both printing and scanning.
Previously, I had an HP Officejet 4500, and it worked great for both printing and scanning with SANE.

Thanks everyone.
 
If it's not capable of postscript or PDF - which I doubt without checking your printer's specs - you must check if it's supported by CUPS which supports a many lots of printers, and use CUPS.
Otherwise it may be only capable to print ASCII text with its integrated font, only.
See HB 11: Printing

For scanning you need to look for if it's supported by SANE, or you need to find out which scanner Brother built in, chose that one, or try another most similar one - and cross your fingers.
 
Thanks guys, as soon as I install I'll try with CUPS for printing and I'll also see if the scanner will be ok.
 
ipp requires the printer to support pwg raster. it may support jpg or pdf but afaik all have to support pwg raster
afaik cups supports pwg
 
covacat said:
ipp requires the printer to support pwg raster. it may support jpg or pdf but afaik all have to support pwg raster
afaik cups supports pwg
Click to expand...
The suspicion is NOT that CUPS supports PWG Raster Format or not, but THE SPECIFIC PRINTER SANELY ACCEPT PWG Raster Format AS-IS JUST LIKE ANCIENT DOT-MATRIX PRINTERS ACCEPTED SIMPLE TEXT STREAMS or not.
Unless the specific printer accepts and prints PWG Raster data stream sanely, specific filter for the specific printer is mandatory, unfortunately.

If i purchase printers by Brother, I'll confirm that the printer supports BR-Script3 (if I recall correctly, it's an implementation of PostScript3 by Brother, based on any version of GhostScript).or not, as supports on FreeBSD for non-BR-Script3 is unclear to me.
 
IPP protocol requires the printer to support pwg-raster. some may add jpeg and or pdf
so if they advertise IPP they should have at least pwg/pdf/jpg
 
sh: 
for i in 95   97 98 ;do url=ipp://10.1.1.$i:631/ipp/printer;echo "-----------$url---------------";ipptool -tv $url get-printer-attributes.test|egrep "document-format-supporte|printer-info";echo ======================================================;done
-----------ipp://10.1.1.95:631/ipp/printer---------------
        printer-info (textWithoutLanguage) = HP LaserJet M1536dnf MFP
        document-format-supported (1setOf mimeMediaType) = image/urf,application/pdf,application/postscript,application/vnd.hp-PCL,application/vnd.hp-PCLXL
======================================================
-----------ipp://10.1.1.97:631/ipp/printer---------------
        printer-info (textWithoutLanguage) = HP LaserJet 400 color M451dn
        document-format-supported (1setOf mimeMediaType) = image/urf,application/pdf,application/postscript,application/vnd.hp-PCL,application/vnd.hp-PCLXL,application/PCLm
======================================================
-----------ipp://10.1.1.98:631/ipp/printer---------------
        printer-info (textWithoutLanguage) = HP LaserJet MFP M130fn
        document-format-supported (1setOf mimeMediaType) = image/urf,application/PCLm,application/octet-stream
======================================================
 
pretty much all brother printers support BR-Script (as T-Aoki already mentioned) as well as hp laserjet emulation, so the generic laserjet driver should always work as a fallback.

the printers web interface usually has a bunch of options for various emulations and default modes for ipp, just check what is also available on cups.

regarding the scanner: if it is advertised as some "designed for windows" garbage it won't work as it has zero intelligence built in. some brother multi-purpose-devices support LiDE or eSCL, so they are supported by SANE. That DCP-1612 isn't listed by SANE, but if it supports one of the common standard backends, it might work.
 
This is the kind of thing T-Aoki is writing about.

PDF Direct Print

Print PDF data directly on label with accuracy and efficiency
satoasiapacific.com satoasiapacific.com
Or try searching for 'PDF Direct Print'.
No one is writing about creating PDF files.
 
astyle said:
If you wanna print to PDF on FreeBSD, CUPS is all you need, no need for a hardware printer to work under CUPS.

I'd suggest doing research to see if the specific printer model is supported by CUPS. If it is, then OP can print.
Click to expand...
I think that this is correct, and that /usr/local/share/cups/mime/mime.convs should cover for these cases, although TBH I dealt only with HP desktop printers (and Lexmark, but that's Xerox now), rest of my experience is only with pro grade, which all had PS/PDF capability and ethernet built in.
I feel ashamed that I can't contribute more to this discussion, but as Brother goes, I have hands-on experience only with their industrial grade sewing machines.
 
For Brother scanning on BSD, if you can't get the other ways above to work, you could try Scan to FTP. I have an old Brother MFC-7840W, and years ago when using OpenBSD I set that up and believe I recall getting a test scan to work. Whether that would constitute scanning "well" would be a matter of opinion. I'm using Linux with the Brother-proprietary scanner driver nowadays.
 
You can usually print a pdf using nothing but netcat--say if your printer's IP is 192.168.1.50 you can print a pdf with
Code: 
nc 92.168.1.50 9100 <myfile.pdf.
Or use pdf2ps myfile.pdf myfile.ps then use nc to print the ps.
 
Maturin said:
if your printer can process PS or PDF
else you get lots of paper of the printed PS's or PDF's source code.
Click to expand...
To not waste too much of paper/toner and if there is no single page PDF (or PS) around, easiest way to make one is something like:
Code: 
man -t bsdcat > bsdcat.ps
ps2pdf bsdcat.ps
and then nc your.printer.ip.address 9100 < bsdcat.pdf
My HP prints PDF straight away, for PS I have to press OK button on the printer.

P.S. Edit (24.09.2025)
For some strange reason man -t bsdcat | lpr prints straight away, just like .pdf with nc, but with .ps sent to nc printer displays "job received" and waits for its OK button to be pressed.
 
Last edited:
scottro said:
(all 2 of them)
Click to expand...
😂 You are a real Unixer!
The common Windows customer put that amount through every 5 years:"Cool, the new PH laser for 199,99!"
(plus the 89,- for the cartridge, because the included one is already empty garbage 😂)
Those landfill fillers can neither PS, PDF, nor PCL (I forgot to mention above) - don't believe that (landfill)? Search a picture of an electronics dump (e.g. Africa) I bet you will find a printer somewhere on it you say:
"Hey, I had the same one myself!" 🧐
But for that every new printer uses 0.001 µg less CO2 while you use it. It gets greener the more you buy!

Until everybody realizes:
You either buy yourself a real printer, which can PS, PDF, or PCL, which are of course not on black friday sales, but cost at least ~1k, and are cheaper - :oops:?? Yes. Because they last >10 years, and waste a lot less cartridges, and paper (elementary school's math is already a challenge only the fewest master 😁)
Or bring the few hardcopy jobs you really need into the next copy shop! Which cost you also less if you account all that wasted paper and cartridge because of printer bitchness those crappy things all start to "develop" after two years at the latest. Plus you don't have to bug yourself with misprints, and printer bitchness, but simply got the job done - professional, reliable, high quality, at less cost.
Until then: zillions of printer drivers are also needed, and the hope that some one wrote the right one for CUPS.🥶
 
Maturin said:
Until everybody realizes:
You either buy yourself a real printer, which can PS, PDF, or PCL, which are of course not on black friday sales, but cost at least ~1k, and are cheaper - :oops:?? Yes. Because they last >10 years, and waste a lot less cartridges, and paper (elementary school's math is already a challenge only the fewest master 😁)
Click to expand...
Or buy good one refurbished/second-hand. I got my HP P3015dn (PS&PDF, duplex, ethernet) with high yield toner (10K pages) for 70€ some ten years ago.

Black is now more on the grayish side; there is a constant warning on the display "black cartridge low" for the last year but is still printing. Although, I'll have to find someone to refill that toner soon – I can do it, but I'll rather pay someone for the job done than to look like a coal miner again.

I had only few paper jams in all those years.

I dealt with all kinds of printers since early '90 – from B1 offsets, production digital color, to simple desktop A4's and I developed a bit of "sailors' superstition" towards them. Don't hate them; they are not your slaves; treat them well and be kind to them as you'll be to your pet and they will just do their job with a joy. 😁
 
Maturin said:
Until everybody realizes:
You either buy yourself a real printer, which can PS, PDF, or PCL, which are of course not on black friday sales, but cost at least ~1k, and are cheaper - :oops:?? Yes. Because they last >10 years, and waste a lot less cartridges, and paper
Click to expand...

Yeah, prior to that, I had one inkjet for color and scanning and a B&W laser. The HP inkejet, of course, when we didn't use the printing for awhile clogged up. I wound up giving them both to a co-worker who enjoys fixing that sort of stuff, he eventually got the inkjet working. At that point, I bought a Samsung MF because I didn't want to pay HP toner prices--three weeks later, HP bought Samsung's printing division. But that printer lasted me for years. I bought it in 2016 and it lasted until last year I think Then I got the Brother last year in January 2024. think I've printed, aside from testing, about two times since I bought it. It's mostly used as a scanner and even that very sparsely. I don't think I've bought a refill cartridge yet. Most of the printing has been playing with various BSD and Linux installs on VMs
 
Note that quite old dot-matrix printers (ESC/P driven, and so on) cannot process PS, PDF and any compatibility rusterized image formats, as they are too aged that do not even know about the formats exists. 😁
 
T-Aoki said:
Note that quite old dot-matrix printers (ESC/P driven, and so on) cannot process PS, PDF and any compatibility rusterized image formats, as they are too aged that do not even know about the formats exists. 😁
Click to expand...
They can, with a little hep - that's what's Ghostscript is for.
gs -sDEVICE=escp -sOutputFile=output.prn input.pdf
One can even throw in resolution of their printer with adding -r240x72 or whatever actual res is for the printer we want to output to.
 
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