Like other Brother printers I’ve used, the HL-3170CDW works great from Linux.

Ubuntu 18.04 driver

With Ubuntu 18.04, the Gutenprint USB driver automatically came up and worked fine for me. So the OEM driver below is optional.

OEM driver [optional]

This works across a wide variety of distros including Ubuntu.

1. Download linux-brprinter-installer script by selecting deb → Printer Drivers → Driver Install Tool

2. Extract the installer

   gunzip linux-brprinter-installer-*.gz
   
   chmod +x linux-brprinter-installer*
   

3. plug in your HL-3170 via USB. Don’t skip the mkdir step or the installer will hang!

   mkdir -p /var/spool/lpd/hl3170cdw
   
   ./linux-brprinter-installer*
   

4. “Input model name ->” HL-3170CDW

5. “Will you specify the Device URI? [Y/n]”

   • USB: no
   • network: yes