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Thread: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

  1. #371
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Beans
    417
    Distro
    Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    I've figured out the fax, although it works in kind of a roundabout way.

    For the MFC-J615W, there are two ways of using the fax from your Ubuntu PC:

    - using the LPR and CUPS-wrapper drivers

    - using the fax-modem driver, which is made specifically for Ubuntu and specifically for Ubuntu 10.10

    The LPR and CUPS-wrapper drivers can't be used ("printed" to) from programs in the way you would with other CUPS printers. If you print to it, nothing happens - the MFC wakes up and indicates "receiving data", the print spool will indicate that the MFC is receiving 0 bytes out of [whatever] and just sit there.

    You have to use Brother's command-line-only brpcfax as stated in the Brother instructions:

    Code:
    brpcfax  -o  fax-number=(fax-number)  (filename)
    and it only accepts .ps (PostScript) files. Making .ps files is a little clunky, the easiest way is to open or create the file in OpenOffice, then select print, specifying "Print to File" in the checkbox. I'm using BRFAX as the printer but I think any PostScript printer would work (the Brother printer, others). All it's doing is converting the text and images to PostScript, which you then fax.

    So - not very direct.

    I sent a test file (not a .ps file though) this way and the printer woke up and started dialing, so I think it should work if you can make a .ps file.

    I also haven't thoroughly tested it out, but the fax-modem driver method through Efax should work OK. However it's limited to USB only as explained in the Brother instructions. The Brother instructions tell you to modify /etc/efax.rc, changing DEV from ttyS1 to modem. You should also modify the other parameters like your name, your telephone number, etc.

    However this is for the Efax command-line program. If you're using the Efax-gtk graphical frontend, it has a separate configuration file. You should be able to modify it using Efax-gtk - File - Settings but for some reason I couldn't alter the settings, it would revert to what it was before when I exited the program. Efax-gtk uses a separate configuration file at /etc/efax-gtkrc which can only be altered as root, so use:

    Code:
    gksudo gedit /etc/efax-gtkrc
    change DEV to modem and alter your name, telephone number, paper settings, etc.

    Unfortunately while Efax-gtk is more user-friendly than brpcfax, it will still only accept .ps files, although it will also accept plain text files according to its description in Synaptic.

    Could be better I guess, but the otherwise flawless operation of this printer in Ubuntu Linux makes up for it.

  2. #372
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
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    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    Quote Originally Posted by Jose Catre-Vandis View Post
    DCP-540CN on network: Printer works fine but Scanner stopped working after update to 10.10. Does using the USB info in libsane.rules work for network scanning as well?
    OK I can confirm this does the trick on Maverick (Xubuntu)

    I had to create the libsane.rules file as it didn't exist:
    Code:
    sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/45-libsane-rules
    then I put this in it:
    Code:
    # Brother DCP-540CN
    SYSFS{idVendor}=="04f9", SYSFS{idProduct}=="01aa", MODE="664", GROUP="scanner"
    
    LABEL="libsane_rules_end"
    Fraoch's search for the brscanconfig file turns up that it also stores the device ids, so good find.

    I saved the file, clicked on my xsane icon, and up it came and scanned away immediately. Back in business.
    No longer participating......

  3. #373
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    Quote Originally Posted by Jose Catre-Vandis View Post
    Fraoch's search for the brscanconfig file turns up that it also stores the device ids, so good find.
    Thanks!

    Glad you got it working again.

  4. #374
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
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    3

    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    Hi,
    Thanks a lot for your post, i got the printer working perfectly but i couldnt make it with the scanner. when i wrote on console "sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/45-libsane.rules " just appear a blank page.
    I would be grateful for any help.

  5. #375
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    Quote Originally Posted by Cristvo View Post
    Hi,
    Thanks a lot for your post, i got the printer working perfectly but i couldnt make it with the scanner. when i wrote on console "sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/45-libsane.rules " just appear a blank page.
    I would be grateful for any help.
    Your setup is like mine. I presume Ubuntu 10.10 doesn't use this file anymore and it didn't exist on my system either.

    Go here:

    http://welcome.solutions.brother.com...nload_scn.html

    , find your printer/scanner model, download the driver and follow the instructions.

    Incidentally the little scanner key program also on this page works just fine, while the Windows and Mac versions I installed on other computers in the household didn't (errors out when the scan gets transferred). Thought that was mildly amusing.

  6. #376
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
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    3

    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    Thanks, scanner is working perfectly!

  7. #377
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    417
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    Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    Quote Originally Posted by Cristvo View Post
    Thanks, scanner is working perfectly!
    Good to hear! Incidentally what model is your Brother machine?

  8. #378
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
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    3

    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    Quote Originally Posted by Fraoch View Post
    Good to hear! Incidentally what model is your Brother machine?
    It's a MFC-820CW.

  9. #379
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Beans
    417
    Distro
    Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    I stumbled upon this post which improved the fax usage for my MFC:

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...76&postcount=8

    Also I played around with the scripts that get executed when the machine keys are pressed to be a bit more useful to me. Note this is newbie stuff because I'm a newbie, so don't expect anything dramatic.

    First, the script at /usr/local/Brother/sane/script/scantofile-0.2.1-3.sh (the version numbers at the end of your script may be different). This controls what happens when you select Scan to File on the machine. By default, it scanned at 100 dpi in an unusual .PPM format and left the file in /home/[your user name]/brscan.

    I changed it to 200 dpi because I always scale it down in another program - it's easy to scale down images, but impossible to scale up if you don't have enough detail. Plus a 200 dpi full-page scan is still manageable across a wireless network, it's a little over 10 MB and takes about 10 seconds to transmit using "g" wireless networking. I changed the file format to TIFF - I don't know much about .PPM and it could be compressed, I want the raw scan and I'll save it in the format of my choice. Finally I always look at a scan in a graphics editor because it almost always needs to be cropped, at the very least, so I want to start GIMP automatically with this file loaded after the scan completes.

    My modified script looks like this:

    Code:
    #! /bin/sh
    set +o noclobber
    #
    #   $1 = scanner device
    #   $2 = friendly name
    #
    
    #   
    #       100,200,300,400,600
    #
    resolution=200
    device=$1
    mkdir -p ~/brscan
    if [ "`which usleep`" != '' ];then
        usleep 10000
    else
        sleep  0.01
    fi
    output_file=`mktemp ~/brscan/brscan.XXXXXX`
    chmod 644 $output_file
    echo "scan from $2($device) to $output_file"
    scanimage --device-name "$device" --format=tiff --resolution $resolution> $output_file
    echo gimp $output_file \;rm -f $output_file | sh &
    To edit your script, use

    Code:
    gksudo gedit /usr/local/Brother/sane/script/scantofile-0.2.1-3.sh
    , modifying the version number as necessary, and either overwrite the existing script with this one or change the number after "resolution" and the last two lines.

    Other niceties which you might want but which I kept - change the location the files are sent to (change the "mkdir -p ~/brscan" line) and don't delete the initial raw scan after editing (remove "\;rm -f $output_file" at the end).

    Next, /usr/local/Brother/sane/script/scantoimage-0.2.1-3.sh. This one already called GIMP but I changed the resolution and file format:

    Code:
    #! /bin/sh
    set +o noclobber
    #
    #   $1 = scanner device
    #   $2 = friendly name
    #
    
    #   
    #       100,200,300,400,600
    #
    resolution=200
    device=$1
    mkdir -p ~/brscan
    if [ "`which usleep`" != '' ];then
        usleep 10000
    else
        sleep  0.01
    fi
    output_file=`mktemp ~/brscan/brscan.XXXXXX`
    echo "scan from $2($device) to $output_file"
    scanimage --device-name "$device" --format=tiff --resolution $resolution> $output_file
    echo gimp $output_file \;rm -f $output_file | sh &
    Finally, /usr/local/Brother/sane/script/scantoocr-0.2.1-3.sh. Turns out this one doesn't work by default at all - there were two lines at the end of the script which were supposed to say that OCR is not supported and then delete the scan. This can be rectified by installing two packages, tesseract-ocr (probably the most accurate command-line OCR engine) and OCRFeeder, a GUI for command-line OCR engines. To install these packages:

    Code:
    sudo apt-get install tesseract-ocr ocrfeeder
    Then the OCR script can be modified to send the scanned file to OCRFeeder, at 200 dpi and in TIFF:

    Code:
    #! /bin/sh
    set +o noclobber
    #
    #   $1 = scanner device
    #   $2 = friendly name
    #
    
    #   
    #       100,200,300,400,600
    #
    resolution=200
    device=$1
    mkdir -p ~/brscan
    if [ "`which usleep`" != '' ];then
        usleep 10000
    else
        sleep  0.01
    fi
    output_file=`mktemp ~/brscan/brscan.XXXXXX`
    echo "scan from $2($device) to $output_file"
    scanimage --device-name "$device" --format=tiff --resolution $resolution> $output_file
    echo ocrfeeder --images $output_file \;rm -f $output_file | sh &
    I may work on this one a little bit, the images you send to OCR need to meet certain requirements (1-bit black & white, etc), but this will only send colour scans to OCRFeeder even if you press the "Black" scan button - the program which detects the button press doesn't seem to differentiate between the two scan buttons. It might be possible to format the image correctly using the options for "scanimage".

    Hope this helps!

  10. #380
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Beans
    3

    Re: HOWTO: Ubuntu All Brother Printer & Scanner Driver Installation for Newbies!

    I have a brother mfc 9120nc connected to the network. I am able to print but how can I install the scanner driver? I am new to ubuntu 10.10 and help will be greatly appreciated.

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