I have followed the instructions on the thread that davidmohammed kindly suggested. The printer lpr and cupswrapper drivers I downloaded from the Brother solutions page were downloaded and installed in the order suggested. The thread added a few things in the installation instructions that the Brother printer solutions page did not include. Those were the addition of two file paths, /var/spool/lpd and /usr/share/cups/model and a cp command for a printer brlpdwrapper filter that my setup does not require, because the printer filter file is already in the right place. Otherwise, I did everything suggested in the thread, but the Brother MFC-8860DN printer would not print when I tried to print a test page. I checked the http://localhost:631 web page as suggested by the thread and everything looked fine, but the printer still did not print.

I also checked the Brothers solutions web page and followed their instructions. The downloading and installation of the drivers was the same, but there were a few steps in the Brother solutions page instructions that the thread did not include in its installation instructions.

The Brother solutions page states that a user should check the printer configuration in the /etc/printcap file for the following entry: :lp=/dev/usb/lp0:\. The printcap file, however, is not at the /etc/printcap location. My printcap file is to be found at the /etc/profile.d path on my Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit system and it does not contain the information as shown on the Brother printer solutions page. My printcap file contains the following information:

# This file was automatically generated by cupsd( from the
# /etc/cups/printers.conf file. All changes to this file
# will be lost.
MFC8860DN|MFC8860DN:rm=bill-desktop:rp=MFC8860DN:

The /etc/cups/printers.conf file mentioned above contains the following:

# Printer configuration file for CUPS v1.4.3
# Written by cupsd
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE WHEN CUPSD IS RUNNING
<Printer MFC8860DN>
Info MFC8860DN
MakeModel Brother MFC8860DN for CUPS
DeviceURI usb:/dev/usb/lp0
State Idle
StateTime 1280260821
Type 8392724
Filter application/vnd.cups-raw 0 -
Filter application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 brlpdwrapperMFC8860DN
Accepting Yes
Shared Yes
JobSheets classified classified
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
OpPolicy default
ErrorPolicy retry-job
Option fitplot false
</Printer>

The Brother solutions page shows the following for a printcap configuration file in the /etc/printcap file for a printer USB connection:

printcap or printcap.local file (for USB connection)
$ cat /etc/printcap
DCP540CN:\
:mx=0:\
:sd=/var/spool/lpd/dcp540cn:\
:sh:\
:lp=/dev/usb/lp0:\
:if=/usr/local/Brother/Printer/dcp540cn/lpd/filterdcp540cn:

The Brother solutions page also points to an /etc/init.d/lpr file to restart the print system. A command line search however states there is no such file or directory.

My suspicion is that if I could somehow join the install instructions of both the thread and the Brother solutions page I could get the printer working. It is clear to me that the problem is an incomplete or incorrect printer configuration that has something to do with the missing /etc/printcap file and the missing /etc/init.d/lpr file. I just don't know how to do it. Do I create these files? If yes, how do you create these files and where should I put them? Am I on the right track? Or is there another solution? Any help would be appreciated.

Bill