RetroPrinter Support

This is a small B&W Laser Printer, wireless. It is detected in the CUPS admin page but there is no dedicated driver. Is there any way of installing this printer as a default Retroprinter?
Thanks

It does not need a default driver if you can print a test page from CUPS. You need to use the drip down settings to set it as the default server printer - see my videos on YouTube RWAP Software channel to see how to do it

If you cannot print to it from CUPS then you will need to ask Brother how to use it with Linux.

You need to download and install a specific driver from https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloa ... _as&os=128

Thank you, this gives me hope. I have downloaded the linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.4-1.gz, the hl1210wlpr-3.0.1-1.i386.deb and hl1210wcupswrapper-3.0.1-1.i386.deb.
However, not being very much into Linux, I don't know what to do with these.

Hmm - not an easy job as Brother do not supply pre-compiled drivers for the Raspberry Pi.

You can try...

Use Bitvise SSH to copy the downloaded packages to /home/pi using the FTP File Manager

Then open a console window and enter the commands:
Note: The second command will take some time.

I have no idea if this will work unfortunately - as I don't have a Brother printer model - you may need to contact Brother support for a Raspbian pacakge or the sources.

Hmm - not an easy job as Brother do not supply pre-compiled drivers for the Raspberry Pi.

You can try...

Use Bitvise SSH to copy the downloaded packages to /home/pi using the FTP File Manager

Then open a console window and enter the commands:
Note: The second command will take some time.

HINT: If you highlight each line in the above you can then use CTRL C to copy it to the clipboard and right mouse button in the console window will paste it.

I have no idea if this will work unfortunately - as I don't have a Brother printer model - you may need to contact Brother support for a Raspbian pacakge or the sources.

Hi, thanks for the instructions. I tried the install and it copied all the files. There were a couple errors, like "E: Invalid operation virt-manager" and
"/var/lib/dpkg/info/hl1210wlpr.postinst: 3: /var/lib/dpkg/info/hl1210wlpr.postinst: /opt/brother/Printers/HL1210W/inf/braddprinter: Exec format error"

This is the transcript of the whole process:

root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# apt-get virt-manager
E: Invalid operation virt-manager
root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# dpkg --add-architecture i386
root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# wget old.kali.org/kali-security/pool/main/e/eglibc/libc6_2.13-38+deb7u8_i386.deb
--2025-05-17 18:55:42-- http://old.kali.org/kali-security/pool/ ... 8_i386.deb
Resolving old.kali.org (old.kali.org)... 54.39.49.227, 2607:5300:203:
Connecting to old.kali.org (old.kali.org)|54.39.49.227|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 3823588 (3.6M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘libc6_2.13-38+deb7u8_i386.deb’

libc6_2.13-38+deb7u8_i38 100%[==================================>] 3.65M 1.82MB/s in 2.0s

2025-05-17 18:55:44 (1.82 MB/s) - ‘libc6_2.13-38+deb7u8_i386.deb’ saved [3823588/3823588]

root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# sudo dpkg -x libc6_2.13-38+deb7u8_i386.deb brother
root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# cp -r brother/lib/* /lib/
root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# cp -r brother/usr/* /usr/
root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# cp -r brother/etc/* /etc/
root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# EXTRA_OPTS="-L /lib/i386-linux-gnu"
root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# dpkg -i hl1210wlpr-3.0.1-1.i386.deb
Selecting previously unselected package hl1210wlpr:i386.
(Reading database ... 64133 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack hl1210wlpr-3.0.1-1.i386.deb ...
Unpacking hl1210wlpr:i386 (3.0.1-1) ...
Setting up hl1210wlpr:i386 (3.0.1-1) ...
/var/lib/dpkg/info/hl1210wlpr.postinst: 3: /var/lib/dpkg/info/hl1210wlpr.postinst: /opt/brother/Printers/HL1210W/inf/braddprinter: Exec format error
root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# dpkg -i hl1210wcupswrapper-3.0.1-1.i386.deb
Selecting previously unselected package hl1210wcupswrapper:i386.
(Reading database ... 64154 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack hl1210wcupswrapper-3.0.1-1.i386.deb ...
Unpacking hl1210wcupswrapper:i386 (3.0.1-1) ...
Setting up hl1210wcupswrapper:i386 (3.0.1-1) ...
lpadmin -p HL1210W -E -v dnssd://Brother%20HL-1210W%20series._pdl-datastream._tcp.local/?uuid=e3248000-80ce-11db-8000-b01041490ffe -P /usr/share/ppd/brother/brother-HL1210W-cups-en.ppd
root@Retro-Printer:/home/pi# /etc/init.d/cups restart
[ ok ] Restarting cups (via systemctl): cups.service.


At the end, I could se the Brother HL-1210W driver listed



I set it as server default and tried a print test page, but it didn't work.

One question, after following your procedure something indeed happened as I could see the driver for Brother HL-1210W in the list (see image in my previous message). However, the driver is described as "Brother HL-1210W for CUPS (en)" only, not "Brother HL-1210W for CUPS (en) + Gutenprint v5.3.1 (en)" like the others. Could this be the problem that I cannot print a test page? Any addiitonal help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Unfortunately, I do not know enough about CUPS to be able to help there - I would try one of the other printer drivers. It is indeed odd that you do not get a test page from within CUPS - you would be better asking Brother supporrt.

Gutenprint should not make too much of a difference.