Printer driver detection changes in Fedora 35

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1

I have a Brother HL-2170W laser printer. When I updated to Fedora 35, my printer is set up with a Generic PCL Laser Printer driver instead of a model-specific PPD. I feel like in Fedora 34 and earlier, it used to auto-detect the printer model and recommended driver. Did something change in the CUPS configuration in Fedora 35?

2

It not looks like :
Releases/35/ChangeSet - Fedora Project Wiki

3

I have the exact same printer and have no driver changes…

4

Brother offers drivers for Linux. https://support.brother.com/g/b/branch/downloadend.aspx?c=nl&lang=nl&prod=hl2170w_all&os=127&dlid=dlf006893_000&flang=4&type3=625 People say this one is out of production?

5

And according to openprinting.org, I should be using the hpijs-pcl5e driver. That does sound vaguely familiar, but why would the printer no longer be detected. Are the HPLIP PPDs no longer packaged in Fedora? I can download and load the PPD manually, but I /know/ I didn’t do that prior to Fedora 35 now.

6

It is still there …

Installed Packages
Name         : hplip
Version      : 3.21.2
Release      : 13.fc35
Architecture : x86_64
Size         : 26 M
Source       : hplip-3.21.2-13.fc35.src.rpm
Repository   : @System
From repo    : updates
Summary      : HP Linux Imaging and Printing Project
URL          : https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing
License      : GPLv2+ and MIT and BSD and IJG and and GPLv2+ with exceptions and
             : ISC
Description  : The Hewlett-Packard Linux Imaging and Printing Project provides
             : drivers for HP printers and multi-function peripherals.

Maybe with sudo dnf reinstall hplip you can reinstall it.

7

Have you tried to remove that printer config and then using hplip reinstall it? If you do that then you can select the proper driver during the reinstall.

You also could just copy the proper ppd file into /etc/cups/ppd for that printer. I have

/etc/cups/ppd/HP_Color_LaserJet.ppd

for my laserjet printer.

8

Hello @linkdupont ,
I had the very same issue when I first began using Fedora 35 SB beta. I lost my printer drivers for my Brother HL-5250-DN and my HL-3075-CW. These are old printers, one from 2008, and the other from 2014. Never a problem until this upgrade. Now things are working for me, but I had to re-install them. and for an entire day they printed gibberish no matter what I did.

9

I have been printing with the Generic PCL Driver the last few days, and the output looks identical to when I was using the “name brand” driver. I printed a test page with each, and cannot see a difference in output. While it does feel weird to use a “generic” driver, it seems to work fine.

10

Makes sense for most printing. The PCL language is standard and just works.

Where you may see a difference is in special configs, such as duplex printing, etc.