Brother HL-2240D on Linux Mint 16 Petra and Linux Mint 17 Qiana (Updated)

This post was updated on August 13, 2014.

This post may be of interest for people running Linux Mint 16 Petra or Linux Mint 17 Qiana who have a Brother HL-2240D laser printer. This may also be helpful for people using other versions of Linux Mint or Ubuntu, or some other printers in the Brother line. Please note that I have only used the HL-2240D printer specifically with Linux Mint 14, Linux Mint 16, and Linux Mint 17 (as well as Windows 7), and I make no claims for any other system. I am going to post my observations and what I know to have worked for me.

I make no guarantees of any sort that this will work for you. All I can say is that it worked for me. While nothing in this process seems especially dangerous to me, you should always make sure you have your data backed up on an external source, and any failure to do so is at your own risk.

I will go through the installation process, as well as a (very short) discussion of the Brother HL-2240D in Linux Mint 14 Nadia, Linux Mint 16 Petra, and Linux Mint 17 Qiana. First though, I offer these few tips that range from the easily missed to the obvious, but are all well worth knowing:

1. Download the user manual (opens in pdf) for the printer and rummage through it. It's a lot, but it really is informative.
2. Money-saving tip: The printer tracks the amount of toner it thinks you have been using. It will stop when it thinks it is empty. Unlike inkjet printers however, the goal seems to be more about maintaining good print quality and less about getting you to buy a new toner cartridge early (I know, that's hard to believe!). Once the printer stops for you to replace the toner, hit the "go" button seven times in quick succession, and you can print as many pages as you want until either you decide that it is time to change the cartridge (i.e. it starts fading), or the printer determines that there is no more toner at all. More information on this feature can be found on page 75 of the above-linked user manual. It is easy to miss, but it is there, and it works. I am currently in the "continue mode", and it is about time to replace it, as the quality of the prints is deteriorating due to low toner.
3. Printing Multiple Copies in duplex mode might result in you having two copies of your document on two sides of the same page. If you do not want this, make sure the print is set to "collate" and set "Create single print jobs for collated output" in LibreOffice. This seems to have fixed the problem for me. I have not tested this extensively, so I do not know where else you might run into this problem.
4. Use the toner-save if quality is not your top priority. I find the result to be quite usable - no need to use extra toner if it's not something where that kind of quality matters.

My installation process (for Linux Mint 16 Petra):
For Linux Mint 17 Qiana, please see the section below.
 
I used this older, but still helpful blog post and the official instructions on Brother's website as the basis for my installation process.

Update: There is now a driver install tool available for download on the Brother website. While I have not tried this tool with Linux Mint 16 (I have only used it on Linux Mint 17), it may simplify the installation process. This process outlined below should still work, but the installation tool was not available when I drafted it.

1. Boot computer
2. Turn printer on, connect it to computer.
3. Download the lpr and cupswapper drivers from Brother's website (deb format) [Edit: This is where you would also find the new driver install tool mentioned above]
4. Install ia32-libs (type "sudo apt install ia32-libs" in the terminal)
5. Install the lpr driver.  You can use the terminal for this (see the instructions on Brother's website); I just simply right-clicked on each file and opened them with "GDebi Package Installer"
6. Install the cupswrapper driver (same method as step 5).
7. I rebooted the computer at this point. This step is strictly speaking probably not necessary, but it doesn't hurt anything either.
8. Having now installed both drivers, open up a web browser (such as Firefox), and go to http://localhost:631/  
• If you are not familiar with this printer management page,explore it a little bit after you are done installing your printer. It is a good site to bookmark, as it will come in handy for printer management time and time again.
9. Go to the Administration tab; under printers, click "Add printer"
10. Select the "Brother HL-2240D" series under "Local Printers"
11. Give the printer a name, a description, a location, etc, as you wish, hit "Continue" when you are satisfied
12. You should see a box next to "Model:". Select HL-2240D
• Note: Mine has dozens of printers in it. I found that the HL-2240D drivers were not located in the logical location in the list, but were instead sandwiched between "Brother HL-8050N Foomatic/Postscript" and "Brother MC-3000 Foomatic/Epson". If you can't find the driver, carefully look through the whole list before you decide that it is not there.
13. Hit "Add printer".
14. Test it out.

Brother HL-2240D on Linux Mint 14 Nadia
Please note that Linux Mint 14 is no longer maintained. This is for reference purposes only.

The HL-2240D was glitchy on Linux Mint 14, although not to the point that it affected reliability. I was quite happy with the job that it did, and the toner saving and duplex features of the printer both worked beautifully. It had one annoying flaw - when printing PDF pages (or pages formatted to PDF, such as the default in LibreOffice or Mozilla Firefox), the print zone would shift roughly one centimeter or so to the right and one centimeter up. The best workaround that I found was to print the document to a .ps file first and then print the .ps file to the printer. It is perfectly doable, but adds a few steps, and gets a little annoying after awhile. In LibreOffice, you can select the print format (File → Print, "Properties", "Device" tab, Printer Language Type), and if you set it on "PostScript (Level from Driver)", it printed with no problem. I never found a good solution to this problem on Linux Mint 14, although certain solutions are proposed (see links below). Never fear, however; I just did a clean upgrade to Linux Mint 16, and the problem seems to have gone away. It appears that the printer offset issue has been tracked down and fixed in recent distributions of Mint and Ubuntu, but alas, not in Linux Mint 14, which is still being maintained, but not aggressively so. I have no knowledge of whether these problems persist in Linux Mint 15.

For more information on this bug, check out these reports and posts:

1. Ask Ubuntu
2. Bug report
3. Forum thread

Brother HL-2240D on Linux Mint 16 Petra
Please note that Linux Mint 16 is no longer being maintained. This is for reference purposes only.

The glitch that I described as having occurred in Linux Mint 14 (the shifting of the page) seems to be a thing of the past. I have had no issues thus far with running the printer on Linux Mint 16. That could always change, but for now I am happy with it. The driver for the HL-2240D seems to have more bells and whistles in Windows 7 (I think it gives you the toner levels, and maybe a few extra options), but I have not found the driver in Mint to be lacking. My short review on the printer in Mint 16 is due to a lack of problems that need to be discussed; I am quite content so far with the printer's performance on Mint 16, even if I am still breaking in the new system.

Brother HL-2240D on Linux Mint 17 Qiana
For installation, download the printer driver install tool from the Brother website. This new driver install tool did all of the heavy lifting for me in Linux Mint 17, greatly simplifying the process. Make sure you get the .deb version. My HL-2240D has been working like a charm - there were some errors when the distribution first came out with the print area shifted slightly on some printouts (reminiscent of the problem discussed in the Linux Mint 14 section), but those issues seem to have been entirely resolved in subsequent updates - I have had no further problems so far. If the driver install tool does not work, the instructions for Linux Mint 16 (see above) are likely still valid, although I have not actually tried them on Qiana.