I think you just go to the System menu and select Printing and the
Add button in that dialog. You will need that printers driver and may
do a search for that.

under system printing you will find the ability to add a printer. If the
printer is not listed you can scan for printers by adding a printer.
Brother supports the Linux community and found my printer without a problem.

if not hit the help button to let cups guide you through the steps.
because it was as easy as picking a printer from a list troublesome
printers may be over my head. I did find instructions for a Kodak
printer once, also the reason I don't recommend Kodak printers to anybody.

Brother has many drivers not included with CUPS. They can be found in the
repos. Just search for brother in Synaptic and it will list the printers
supported in each package (there are several). If you just look in the
groups you are not likely to see it as it is in the text utilities and not
graphical.

my usb port on my printer is broke. that is why it would
not and could not find my printer. So now I have to get the cord for the other
port on my printer and try again. I was racking my brain about this when my son
said " that looks broke " well it is. thank you all for your help I will just go
back too lurking now.

At least you know the problem so can stop banging your head against
that brick wall You'll be wanting a parallel port cable but it's
only going to work if the system you want to connect to has a parallel
port connection - usually not an option if it's a laptop you are going
to connect to.