I recently installed my Brother Laser DCP 7020 on 8.10 and noticed that there
was a whole slew of new Brother drivers, including many in your series. This
would mean that you don't have to download from Brother as they come with the
kernel. Ubuntu 8.10 uses the latest kernel 2.6x.27. You do not need to upgrade
to 8.10 as it is still a month away from release, but you might want to check
out what kernel you are using and seeing if there is a kernel update in the
repositories for 8.04 (the most recent stable release of Ubuntu). A new kernel
will give newer drivers and better detection. Also you do not always need an
exact driver match. You can choose one that is quite close and still get the
printer to work with full functionality.
In the file manager go to /usr/src/ to see what kernels you have and in grub
look closely to see what the default is. Sometimes if you boot the wrong kernel
you will find that things may not work as you expect them to. This is because
many things suck as vms and video are linked to the kernel. If you get
unexpected results after a kernel upgrade, you can boot the old kernel which is
wjy it is good to keep at least the previous one around.
Kernel developers have made drivers their priority so much headway has been made
in recent kernel releases and many users would have greater success if you used
the latest kernel available to you. However, Ubuntu has the nasty habit of
collecting kernels, keeping them all and only appending the new one to the top
of the list causing your grub menu to swell in size and to keep older kernels
cluttering up your drive. It is a good habit to trim outdated kernel or to limit
the number you have.
Here is one suggestion:
galigio.wordpress.com/.../how-to-fix-the-number-of-kernels-during-\
the-ubuntu-boot-up/