thayer

I just want to share my notes for installing a Brother HL-L5210DW(T) printer via USB under Fedora Atomic 40 (Kinoite), in case it helps anyone else. This may work for other similar models too. I've included some background info at bottom if you're interested.

The following method doesn't require any proprietary drivers, and utilizes IPP-over-USB and IPP Everywhere, both of which are preinstalled on Fedora 40 Atomic distributions (and likely their traditional variants as well).

1. Connect the printer via USB and ensure it is powered on
2. Open the CUPS admin web interface at http://localhost:631/
3. Select Administration and enter your credentials
4. Select Add Printer
5. Select Internet Printing Protocol (ipp), then Continue
6. Enter ipp://localhost:60000/ipp/print in the path field, then Continue
7. Enter a name for the printer (ex: HL-L5210DW), then Continue
8. Select Brother as the Make, then Continue
9. Select IPP Everywhere as the Model, then Add Printer
10. Set the default printer options as desired (set Duplex to DuplexNoTumble for standard 2-sided printing)
11. Select Set Default Options
12. From the Maintenance drop-menu, select Set as Server Default

More info

I haven't needed to configure a USB printer at home in well over 15 years, so I was more than a little rusty, and things were further complicated by my use of Fedora Atomic. I'll eventually connect this device via Ethernet so it can be used by everyone on the LAN, but until I sort out exactly where I want to put it I'm stuck with USB.

Brother's driver install tool expects dnf, apt, or yum, and so it's incompatible with ostree-based systems like Kinoite or Silverblue. You can of course download the driver manually and install the necessary packages:

rpm-ostree install --apply-live hll5210dwpdrv-4.0.3-1.i386.rpm glibc.i686 libstdc++.i686

However, I still ran into some problems (likely related to SELinux), and I wasn't keen on overlaying additional packages, particularly proprietary software written for i386 arch.

I then opted to try the generic brlaser driver, but it failed to work correctly when long-edge (NoTumble) duplex printing was enabled. The backside of pages were corrupted and illegible.

After spending far too much of my Saturday reading support forums, I eventually discovered that IPP-over-USB was a thing, and the rest went smoothly. Hopefully this post helps anyone else with an HL-L5210DWT or other L5000 series Brother printer.

Bonus Tip: Disable deep sleep

If you have a Brother printer that goes into deep sleep and doesn't wake up for print jobs, you can disable the Deep Sleep feature via the printer's built-in menu:

1. Press the OK button to bring up the printer's menu
2. Navigate to General Setup > Ecology > Sleep Time
3. Press OK to enter into the Sleep Time settings
4. Press the Minus and Cancel buttons simultaneously to display the hidden Deep Sleep menu
5. Press OK to enter into the Deep Sleep settings
6. Navigate up/down to change the setting to Off
7. Press OK
8. Turn off the printer, unplug it and plug it back in, then verify the setting is retained

Longtime Fedora Silverblue user here, who recently jumped over to Kinoite (Atomic KDE). I typically enable autologin on my display managers because I use whole disk encryption and already need to enter my passphrase to decrypt and start the OS.

I discovered pretty quickly that SDDM's autologin feature isn't working under Fedora 40. LightDM also failed to start under Wayland on F40, regardless of which greeter I tried.

Long story short, I opted to use GDM since I knew its automatic login feature worked fine under Wayland. It's worth noting that KDE has it's own lockscreen mechanism, so you won't even see GDM unless you manually logout of your session. To try this yourself:

1. Install GDM: rpm-ostree install --apply-live gdm

2. Disable SDDM: sudo systemctl disable sddm

3. Enable GDM: sudo systemctl enable gdm

4. Reboot and select the Plasma session before logging in; this is required only once in order to establish to the default, otherwise GDM will load a broken GNOME session when autologin is enabled

5. Edit /etc/gdm/custom.conf and add the following under [daemon] (replacing username with your own):

    AutomaticLoginEnable = true
    AutomaticLogin = username
   

Voila! You will no longer need to enter your user credentials before loading the desktop.

Does anyone know if there are plans underway to allow user-level flatpak installations using GNOME Software?

I recently created a second user account on my main Silverblue workstation for a visiting family member. I assumed the user would be able to install any local apps they needed through the Software store, however Software attempts to install all apps as system-wide, which of course required me to input my own credentials for authentication. This seems counterintuitive to the overall goals of the flatpak platform.

I know we can simply install userspace apps on the command line with --user, however the family member isn't as proficient with Linux.

Fellow Fedora Immutable users, have any of you automated your system updates to occur at shutdown? If so, do you find it makes a practical difference?

I'm thinking of doing the same with Tony Walker's silverblue-update service.

I shutdown most of my machines daily, and that often means getting an updated image shortly after startup the next day and being forced to reboot or nearly always remain one day behind in updates. By checking for updates again at shutdown, this should help ensure I've always got the latest daily image at boot. Thoughts?

Probably a longshot, but hoping anyone here might have working instructions on getting OpenRazer running under Fedora Silverblue. I recently picked up some Huntsman V2s and while OpenRGB works for basic control, I'd like to see what other options are available.

Apparently there is a known incompatibility between Silverblue and how OpenRazer implements kernel modules (link). I've seen elsewhere that some users have tweaked the build files to work around this, but I couldn't find any detailed info. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT:

I got it working, but it wasn't worth the trouble compared to simply running OpenRGB in a flatpak. For Razer keyboard users, you'll gain one or two RGB presets over OpenRGB, such as Reactive, and the ability to adjust the polling rate (the merits of which are highly debatable). You'll lose secure boot and kernel verification unless you also add the ublue repo and signing key rpm (ublue-os-akmods-addons).

If anyone wants to do it anyway, I had success by downloading and installing the following ublue-os akmod rpms from here:

• akmod-openrazer-100.0.0.git.530.886f986d-1.fc39.x86_64.rpm
• kmod-openrazer-100.0.0.git.530.886f986d-1.fc39.x86_64.rpm
• openrazer-kmod-common-100.0.0.git.530.886f986d-1.fc39.x86_64.rpm

(Note: you might need to layer the kernel-devel package first; I had it layered already so I can't confirm.)

Add the openrazer repo, then install the daemon and frontend app:

curl -o - https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/hardware:/razer/Fedora_$(rpm -E %fedora)/hardware:razer.repo | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/razer.repo
rpm-ostree install openrazer-meta razergenie

Add the plugdev group to /etc/group, then add your user to it:

sudo bash -c 'grep "plugdev" /lib/group >> /etc/group'
sudo gpasswd -a $USER plugdev

Finally, launch RazerGenie...

Despite being a heavy cell phone user for more than 25 years, it only recently occurred to me that vertical navigation on most phones is inverted when compared to traditional computers. You swipe down to navigate upward, and up to navigate downward. I recently spent time using a MacBook, which apparently defaults to this "natural" scrolling (mobile-style), and I was completely thrown off by it.

I've been using natural scrolling on a couple of my own desktops ever since, mostly as a mental exercise, and I wondered...how many of you folks prefer this method?