Trying to install a printer driver for the Brother DCP-7055

I have been trying to install the driver for the DCP-7055 but it gives me the error:

error: Importing package ‘cupswrapperDCP7055’: Unsupported path: /usr/local/Brother/Printer/DCP7055; See Determine support path for RPMs that install into `/opt`, `/usr/local` etc · Issue #233 · coreos/rpm-ostree · GitHub

Any advice?

Is that coming from an .rpm?
What command you user to try to install it?

Yep, I use: rpm-ostree install cupswrapperDCP7055-2.0.4-2.i386.rpm

Well a few things You can try, but the first is a must. The others may in the end break your installation
or require lots of work.

  1. Send a request to Brother to correct their drivers and follow a sane standard or you will put money where your mouth is.

  2. You can try extracting the rpm into /var/usrlocal (which should be mounted to /usr/local/ and is writable)

  3. Danger, never tried this before: ostree seems to have recently gained a --hotfix option for permanent changes to your deployment. And than there is rpm-ostree usroverlay. You can play around and break your installation. (happy to know if it worked)

  4. Make your own Silverblue image with that rpm installed during compose.

Without knowing how that particular driver works I can’t tell about other workarounds like environment variables for CUPS maybe or something?

For some Brother printer’s using the equivalent open driver (Foomatic) or installing using a PPD file may give limited functionality - depending on how you intend to use the printer.

I agree with @damianatorrpm, either Brother (and other vendor’s) change their installer’s or we have to do stuff like extract the files and scripts from the RPM and install manually. This sometimes works, but is clumsy, not guaranteed and hard is to maintain/update. To make things more confusing some Brother supplied RPMs (I suspect newer models) do install OK using rpm-ostree.

I had a go at extracting an RPM (with mixed success) to address a similar issue involving an Epson scanner (Diagnosing hardware driver installation issues in Silverblue)

For me, I stopped using Silverblue and went back to regular workstation a few months back mostly because of hardware install related issues.

Since this is high on Google for Brother printers on Silverblue, I’m replying even though 3 years late.

I’ve managed to install the Brother DCP-L2530DW rpm driver inside a toolbox. You’ll be only able to print from the terminal, but it’s better than nothing. Install the rpm with sudo dnf as usual, also the lpr package, then check if the printer is detected with lpstat -p and set it to default with lpoptions -d <PrinterName>. Then you can print with lp "filename".

I’m having some problems printing pdfs even with the cups-filters package but that’s a separate issue.

I have a Brother MFC-L2750DW and it works flawlessly with Fedora, including Silverblue. It’s on the network, is autodetected, can print (in black and white, as it’s just a BW printer) and can scan (in color or black and white). I didn’t have to install anything special.

So at least some Brother printers are supported without any additional software. (I don’t know if yours is one of them.)

A few years back, I did have to wrestle with print support on Silverblue with their driver too, but that changed around two years ago.

Again, this might not be for all Brother printers, but it definitely is the case for some of them.

(I’m on my phone at the moment but can hopefully remember to check the settings when I’m back in front of my computer.)

Good to hear that newer Brother printers work out of the box. My DCP is ~5 years old and while Fedora detects it just fine over USB, it can’t do anything and requests additional drivers. Is there any resource where someone could check which exact printer models the kernel supports? Maybe it’s time I upgrade, even though it still works fine, but now that I moved away from Windows completely I’d like to be sure I’m buying something that’s Linux-friendly without ancient drivers.

As you mentioned your printer is on LAN, it got me thinking - network printers probably use a different interface / communication than USB ones, right? My insight into printing tech is rather shallow, but I’d think they don’t need some specific drivers and there must be some standard protocol. I’ve realized my printer has WLAN that I’ve never used before and lo and behold, it works! Thanks for the push over the hill. :vulcan_salute:t2:

I feel silly now as it’s obvious in retrospect, but perhaps my toolbox plight could still help someone with a USB-only printer.

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Edit: I didn’t have enough coffee yet this morning. I see you tried it and it works! Awesome!

I’ll leave my previous response below in case it helps anyone else. :wink:


While the kernel provides a lot of support for various types of hardware, printers are special. Support for printers is provided by a software stack called “CUPS” (Original acronym: “Common UNIX Printing Service”). But you don’t need to know that to get it to work.

Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like on my system, in GNOME Settings:

My printer is several years old too, but it “just works”. I’ve never tried hooking it up directly; it’s on the network as my partner and I both need to print and scan. (She especially needs to, and does so via Windows. I’m using Fedora on my systems, both for work and personal. Ironically, it works every time on Fedora without any problems, but Windows has issues 25% of the time for no discernible reason. She sometimes gives me a PDF on a USB stick to print via Linux. :grin:)

It’s using “driverless” support, which is basically printer+scanner magic provided by AirPrint / AirScan.

Looking at OpenPrinting’s database, I do see your printer supported using this as well.

So, theoretically, you should be able to put your printer on your network and be able to print to it without any special drivers or any fuss.

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Thanks for the insights, very appreciated!