How to make a combined brother printer driver AUR package

TODO

Analyze differences of file trees between the two types
Analyze differences of the installation processes between the two types

Intro

Traditionally, Brother printers’ drivers are divided with cupswrapper and lpr. The Arch-Wiki gives the solution on how to package them. But there’s some printers, e.g. DCP-B7500D and HL-L2350DW, have a combined driver with different file tree. This article is to record how I package.

Preparation

Arch-Linux PC (of cause)
.deb or .rpm download link
Have learn how to make AUR package https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_package_guidelines

Write PKGBUILD

Usually they have a common version 4.0.0

Just make your own adaptation to my PKGBUILD (adapted from Roman Schmocker’s brother-hll2350dw package):

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# Maintainer: ous50
pkgname=brother-dcpb7500d
printerModel=DCPB7500D
pkgver=4.0.0
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Printing driver for Brother DCP-B7500 printer"
arch=("i686" "x86_64" "armv7l") //check the '/opt/brother/Printers/$printerModel/lpd' in the data.tar.gz
url="https://support.brother.com/g/b/producttop.aspx?c=in&lang=en&prod=dcpb7500d_as_cn"
license=("EULA")
groups=("base-devel")
depends=('cups' 'ghostscript')
depends_x86_64=('lib32-glibc')
install="$pkgname.install"
source=(
    "https://download.brother.com/welcome/dlf103663/dcpb7500dpdrv-$pkgver-1.i386.deb"
    'cupswrapper-license.txt'
	'lpr-license.txt'
    )
md5sums=(
    "c5d5c7febae0eab6254cb7332f4038c0"
    '97ad0cffd216059e9d1d3121899d8646'
    '5e87a3dc0f3e3438c088eda0f3565f0d'
)

package(){
  tar xf data.tar.gz // If you use .deb as your source, you must use this to fully decompress. (Not tested on .rpm packages)
  cp -R "$srcdir/opt" "$pkgdir/opt"
  ln -s "/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/lpd/$CARCH/rawtobr3" "$pkgdir/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/lpd/rawtobr3"
  ln -s "/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/lpd/$CARCH/brprintconflsr3" "$pkgdir/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/lpd/brprintconflsr3"

  install -d "$pkgdir/usr/lib/cups/filter/"
  ln -s "/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/cupswrapper/lpdwrapper" "$pkgdir/usr/lib/cups/filter/brother_lpdwrapper_DCPB7500D"

  install -d "$pkgdir/usr/share/cups/model/"
  ln -s "/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/cupswrapper/brother-DCPB7500D-cups-en.ppd" "$pkgdir/usr/share/cups/model"

  install -Dm644 "$srcdir/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/LICENSE_ENG.txt" "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname/LICENSE_ENG.txt"
  install -Dm644 "$srcdir/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/LICENSE_JPN.txt" "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname/LICENSE_JPN.txt"
}

Remember to get ‘cupswrapper-license.txt’ and ’lpr-license.txt’ or just delete them from source

For better notice of user installation, you could write a xxx.install file to help(in my case the filename is brother-dcpb7500d.install):

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post_install() {
	post_upgrade;
}

post_upgrade() {
echo "Restart CUPS service to load the new files"
echo "You can now register your new printer using the web interface at:"
echo "  http://localhost:631/"
}

Test installation and upload

After you have saved the PKGBUILD, do a test installation:

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makepkg -rcsi

restart cups.service after installation and go to check if your model has shown in the list:

If it’s shown, then you could upload it to AUR

Tips:

In settings you might see an error like:

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Failed to search for a recommended driver: 'The name org.fedoraproject.Config.Printing was not provided by any .service files'

In this case you need to install system-config-printer package:

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sudo pacman -S system-config-printer

Thanks

Many thanks to Roman Schmocker. Without you it would be much harder to finish my AUR package and of course, this blog.

Thanks Arch-Wiki contributors for good documentations.