Throughput = 30 Foomatic entry made by PPDtoXML T/G 0.06

Maximum paper width: 8.7 inches / 22.0 cm (Standard format printer)

Printing engine speed: 28 pages/min

User Notes

For Debian/hl5250dn my advice is to prefere the ppd provided
by the package openprinting-ppds of you usual deb/repos
than to use this package:
openprinting-ppds-postscript-brother_20081112-1lsb3.2_all.deb.
For instance with the second driver and okular, I could only
print starting from the 1st page, problem that I don't
have with the debian's repos ppd.

It seems the postscript emulation is "astonishingly slow".
I read this and I confirm. Thus, if you want a quality printing
and have life to do it, prefers sending postscript to the printer.
For this document: http://tel.archives-ouve\
rtes.fr/docs/00/21/22/86/PDF/main.pdf you can have a good 10
pages per hour :)
Alternatively use the gutenprint hl-1250 ppd (that transforms
the postscript in pcl6 before sending). The quality is poorer
but you have 28ppm.

(http://www.buy.com/prod/brother-hl-5250dn-network-laser-p\
rinter-duplex-30ppm-1200dpi-brother/q/loc/101/202025831.html)

The printer works out of the box in Ubuntu 8.04 - no software installation is required.

[[Comments on the above]]

I own both an HL-5250DN and MFC-8860DN multi-function. The latter essentially has the same print engine
and mostly same processor as the former. As mentioned above the BRScript (which is really just
a nearly 100% compatible Postscript(TM) implementation in the printer firmware) is extremely slow
on all but the simplest of things. I upgraded both units with over 256MB (I got it cheap), and
there is virtually no improvement. Apparently the firmware doesn't try to raster multiple images
before printing (except when duplexing of course) (or maybe there is an option I don't know about yet).
Bottom line, the Postscript(TM) implementation is a complete joke.

Using ghostscript with pxlmono gives very good results, it just might not be as tweakable for more
advanced grayscale/half-toning. It is usually MUCH faster, but not always. On a number of PDFs
sent to cups (run through pstops, etc), the pxlmono driver is actually slower than sending Postscript
to the printer. It is still slow with Postscript, about 0.17 PPM, but definitely better than 0.01 PPM.

Overall, PCL-XL (with pxlmono or something more efficient for this printer's quirks) is the way to go.
Perhaps someone can figure out why the output from pxlmono has worst case operation that is very poor.
Or another PS to PCL-XL processor/rasterizer could be used.

[[Comments on the above]]

Someone says there: http://forums.linux-foundation.org/read.php?24,7305,7458
to press 3 time the Go button within 2 seconds to obtain printed
informations about the printer. Can be very useful
Among other things, you can see it emulates Epson fx-850 &
IBM Proprinter.

Beside: (lj5gray/plxmono/genric-gutenprint/gimp)
Don't send PostScript to this printer (or in very small quantity).
Ghostscript provides lj5gray and plxmono. As previously said
lj5gray is slower. But as said in some places on the net,
plxmono can render plain black rectangles in place of "bitmap",
if I understood/remember well. This issue happens 'often'.
Try to use front ends that separate the "rastered" file into
1 pages at once files (the explanation might be wrong); but the
printer often fails silently, depending on the 'way' you send it
the datas.
With Cups, using localhost:631 to make the configuration, the driver
I would recommend is this one:
Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.4
(the only pity is it doesn't put the margin so well with A4paper.
How this could be fixed? I don't know).
To print images, it can be good idea using Gimp (gui).
(We can see there that command line uses the -raw option:
this too can be used in case other solutions failed).
Also you can use some png2ps(not sure) cli converters.

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Discussion forum

Look for help in our forum for printers from Brother.

Miscellaneous

Drivers

The following driver(s) are known to drive this printer:

Recommended driver:

Other drivers: