On Monday 02 January 2017 00:51:11 Jape Person wrote: > On 01/01/2017 09:29 PM, Gene Heskett wrote: > > On Sunday 01 January 2017 20:31:00 Jape Person wrote: > >> On 01/01/2017 07:38 PM, Joel Rees wrote: > >>> I got a Brother printer to work by installing both the debian > >>> packages from the repos and the deb from Brother's website, but > >>> the scanner still isn't being found. > >>> > >>> Running Wheezy. > >>> > >>> Would anyone care to tell me what steps they took to get scan > >>> functionality on their Brother multifunction printers? > >> > >> I imagine the exact process you want to follow would depend on the > >> exact device you bought. > >> > >> I just went through the process of hooking up a Brother MFC-9340CDW > >> (color laser with scanner, etc.) to my home network. > >> > >> Here's the deal. If you use either the CUPS localhost:631 > >> functionality or system-config-printer, you will probably be able > >> to find a driver that will work for the printer portion of the > >> device. I found that the MFC-9320CDW (Note the slight difference in > >> model number.) Foomatic PostScript driver worked best among the > >> open source drivers available from the repositories for my > >> particular printer. > >> > >> I'm pretty sure that nothing from the repositories will drive the > >> scanner portion of this device or any other multi-function printer > >> currently made by Brother. > > > > I'd argue that point. Brothers support for their stuff under linux > > may not be precisely what you expect, but they seem to at least have > > a stable interface. Install their drivers, and you m,ay have to > > fine tune the colors or saturation (they seem intent on saving > > toner, but if you keep telling by way of cups settings to use a > > little more as you go along, you will eventually get decent color > > output. As for the scanner, xsane found it and ran it the first > > time I tried it, with some stumbling due to tcp packet checksum > > errors, it would send the scanner 6 commands, they would be rejected > > because of checksum errors but the 7th attempt was successful. This > > particular combo has its i/o interface buried inside the unit, > > burning up 3 of the 5 feet a usb cable is allowed, so rather than > > spending an extra $20 for a usb hub, (this places usb tree resembles > > a weeping willow tree already) I had a spare 10 foot cat5 jumper so > > I plugged it into my switch and gave it a local address. I was > > badmouthing brother because of the checksum errors, but one day, > > after quite a few updates had been installed on this wheezy system, > > I noticed the delay was gone, and on watching a tcpdump, the errors > > were gone, and they have stayed gone. So it wasn't brothers fault. > > The combo machine? an MFC-J6920DW, one of those monsters that also > > handles 11x17, scanning and printing. For 11x17 prints, you would > > do well to build a chute of some kind to guide the paper into it > > from the rear, its a cast iron bitch to do it by hand even when > > using the guide tray I built. Sorta weird, it does std portrait > > output in landscape, but it also feeds the paper in landscape so the > > paper comes out sideways. The only thing it doesn't do is spit out > > the paper as fast as the propaganda said it could. > > What point would you argue? I was talking about the drivers which can > be installed through the CUPS web interface or through the > system-config-printer application. I was simply stating that there > were no FOSS drivers in our (Debian's) repos for the scanner portion > of these devices. Nothing to argue about, is there? If you can point > out an exception, then sane.org would love to hear about it. They > don't list a single Brother scanner device as being supported without > proprietary software. > > >> I'm not content to install their proprietary stuff to make the > >> scanner work, so I just use the thing as a printer and copier. If I > >> really need to use the scanner function, one of my wife's Android > >> toys can use the scanner via wifi, and then she can e-mail the > >> resulting document to me. > > > > That, considering that with their drivers, it Just Works(TM) seems > > like cutting off your nose because it has a pimple. > > It's what I choose to do with my systems. Do whatever you wish with > yours, and I'll do whatever I wish with mine. Again, you're arguing > about an *opinion* which I stated clearly was an opinion. > > And their drivers don't "just work" without doing some pretty wonky > stuff to the system. You post about enough problems you have with > unusual configurations that I'd think you wouldn't begrudge someone > else wishing to avoid that sort of thing. > > I gave credit where credit was due, and acknowledged that the > installation script did a good job of installing working drivers for > all of the functions. I just didn't appreciate the way it went about > the job. Look below in the paragraphs you quoted. > > >> I did, however, test the proprietary drivers for the MFC-9340CDW on > >> a Debian testing system before yanking them off and reverting > >> entirely to FOSS. > >> > >> Brother provides a number of different ways to install the mixture > >> of open source and proprietary drivers they provide on the support > >> site. If you are in the least bit persnickety about the way > >> installers work, you won't like Brother's installers. They use a > >> lot of dpkg --force-install crap and stick stuff like 32 bit > >> libraries onto your 64 bit architecture so that you will see > >> warnings scroll by and start wondering why you bothered with this. > >> > >> The funny thing is that the worst of these installers, a script > >> which installs everything possible via download, actually does the > >> best job of getting all of the parts of the device to work -- > >> assuming that you don't make a wrong choice somewhere during the > >> installation procedure. > >> > >> I tried installing just the scanner software from the proprietary > >> software along with the open source foomatic driver. That worked > >> pretty well, but only after some trial-and-error with the > >> instructions. > >> > >> If you do any of Brother's manual install procedures, watch out for > >> the typos in their instructions. Some of the mistakes in the > >> documentation are really, really ridiculous. Even an intern in the > >> support division should be able to write instructions that > >> distinguish properly between usb and network connections. > >> > >> Also, if you do install the Brother proprietary stuff, run > >> debfoster immediately afterward to confirm that you want to keep > >> all of the parts and pieces of the drivers and their libraries so > >> that your package manager won't try to throw it all away the next > >> time you run a full-upgrade. > >> > >> Good luck! Or just use the open source printer driver from the > >> repository and use your smartphone for scanning. > > > > For a far less secure way than I do it. > > For a far less secure way than you do what? Scanning? You're stating > that you know for a fact that using the WPA-secured wifi connection > between a smartphone and an applet on the smartphone for getting a > scan from an MFC is less secure than installing proprietary software > on your computer to accomplish the scan? Is that really what you're > stating? I wouldn't care to spend the time and energy that would be > required to prove the point one way or another. > Neither do I, and the choice of printers you use, or scanners, becomes considerably more limited when you eliminate the linux drivers supplied by the devices maker, and which I feel I bought as part of the deal when I dropped my card on the counter to pay for the device. That choice is for you and I to make isn't it? I did think for a spell that epson was good, but the last 2 epson printers I bought had head failures that epson refused to do anything about because I was running linux. The first one failed in about 6 months, the next one in under 30 days, head clogs, so I jumped to a brother laser, which worked well for about 3 years, but the high voltage card went down. That is something I will fix whenever I get enough stuff cleared off the workbench as I am a CET. In the meantime this ink squirter is working fairly well, and if I need to lay out a metal working machines logic diagram, the 11x17 cuts that half a sheet of plywood covering job down to only 6 sheets of paper to trim so edges match and mount on that plywood. I look at this one as an interim solution to a need. Its not doing me any good if it doesn't work, and if the maker doesn't want to support linux, then he just lost me as a customer. Its his choice. I just want it to work, and brothers stuff does.
As far as security is concerned, I run a router reflashed with dd-wrt. Nothing comes in I don't invite. Period. My sons were here for a few last summer, and I turned on the radio so their smart phones could use it, set it up with the best keyfile security (I thought, WPA-PSK with a 2K key. I don't know which neighbor cracked it, and the path was not into my system but out on the net.) So the only thing I noted was it got slow, but when I got the net bill, my usage had jumped 50 gigabytes without me doing anything unusual. Logging into the router I found it had 2 dhcp clients. Nothing here uses dhcp. I could knock them out and they were back in 3 seconds. Screw it, and turned off the radio. They couldn't get to my stuff but they could sure burn up my bandwidth. > But I am sure of one thing, using the smartphone or tablet to get the > scan doesn't install software outside the approved Debian repositories > on my Debian Gnu/Linux systems. > > I'm not Chicken Little crying about a falling sky. I'm just happier > sticking with software and drivers for which the computing community > has access to source on my critical systems. > > I don't worry a lot about my wife's smartphone and tablet. I consider > Android devices to be compromised from the start. She transacts no > financial, commercial, or legal business on those devices. The Debian > systems here, on the other hand, get used for lots of business that we > just don't trust to systems loaded with proprietary software. > > It's not a religion; it's a preference. And I always try to be careful > to distinguish between fact and opinion. Hence my advice covered use > of FOSS-only software, use of a combination of proprietary software > and FOSS software using manual driver installation methods, and use of > the installer script which still installs a mix but does the job with > a fairly heavy hand (again, in my *opinion*). > > JP Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>