Xubuntu network sharing Samsung USB scanner

Another one down.

I have an intransigent SAMSUNG SCX-4x21 Series multifunction printer scanner that someone gave us. I'd have gone for the network version, but beggars can't be choosers.

Anyway, I thought I'd try and network the scanner to the other workstations.

I first tried it by setting up saned. This was a major fail. If I accessed the scanner with scanimage -L I got a big error.

Ironically if I started saned in manual mode with /usr/sbin/saned -d128 it worked OK from a networked workstation.

Seems that there is an issue with Samsung scanners and sane to do with error messages. There are various posts around about this including on the sane FAQ list.

Solution is to use a wrapper :

On 'server' where the USB printer/scanner is connected :


edit /etc/defaults/saned and set RUN = NO


Install xinetd (I know it is deprecated but by the time it's dumped entirely I'll have moved on....)

sudo apt-get install xinetd

Configure /etc/xinetd.conf  (amend your network details accordingly)

# Simple configuration file for xinetd
#
# Some defaults, and include /etc/xinetd.d/

defaults
{
# add your network here
only_from = 10.0.0.0/24
instances = 60
log_type = FILE /var/log/xinetd.log
log_on_success = HOST PID
log_on_failure = HOST
cps = 25 30
}

includedir /etc/xinetd.d



Make new file in /etc/xinetd.d/saned with the following :


service saned
{
  port        = 6566
  protocol    = tcp
  disable     = no
  flags       = REUSE
  socket_type = stream
  wait        = no
  user        = root
  group       = saned
  server      = /usr/sbin/saned_wrapper
}



Make a new file called /usr/sbin/saned_wrapper with the following :

#!/bin/sh
#
# Need this for Samsung Scanners
# Put in in /usr/sbin and chmod 755 /usr/sbin/saned_wrapper
#
# Call saned with stderr redirected, to avoid strange crash
exec /usr/sbin/saned 2> /var/log/saned.log


sudo service xinetd restart

On the remote workstation make sure you add the IP address of the 'server' to /etc/saned.d/net.conf

Try connecting from a remote workstation with scanimage -L

Get a coffee and relax :-)

Brother MFC-7360N installation on Ubuntu Precise

Been tearing my hair out with this. Had it working on the first machine after a lot of trial and error, but couldn't on the second.

Make sure you have ia32-libs or ia32-libs-multiarch installed first if you have a 64 bit box.

If you get in a knot you can remove the packages with dpkg -e

I did some manual messing and it then wouldn't uninstall properly  as I had moved a file it wanted. Make sure you clear all your old attempts first.

Check what you have installed with :

dpkg -l |grep lpr
dpkg -l |grep cups

The key was to add BOTH the brother deb packages downloaded from here :

 http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/download_prn.html#MFC-7360

Then do

dpkg -i
dpkg -i

They should install happily.

The I just fired up the Xubuntu print manager, added a printer, Find on network and picked the one with the IP address .

I used the "LPD network printer" via DNS-SD option, picked teh MFC-7360N Cups driver and away we went.

Easy when you know how...

 If you only try to install the cups wrapper package you will likely get this sort of error :

sudo dpkg -i --force-all cupswrapperMFC7360N-2.0.4-2.i386.deb
(Reading database ... 261209 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace cupswrappermfc7360n 2.0.4-2 (using cupswrapperMFC7360N-2.0.4-2.i386.deb) ...
cups stop/waiting
cups start/running, process 4501
Unpacking replacement cupswrappermfc7360n ...
Setting up cupswrappermfc7360n (2.0.4-2) ...
ERROR : Brother LPD filter is not installed.
chmod: cannot access `/usr/local/Brother/Printer/MFC7360N/inf/brMFC7360Nrc': No such file or directory
chmod: cannot access `/usr/local/Brother/Printer/MFC7360N/inf': No such file or directory


Add the LPR package first !


I got all the following errors as well until I got it installed correctly :

E [29/Jan/2014:16:45:55 +0100] Unknown directive SystemGroup on line 3 of /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.
E [29/Jan/2014:16:45:55 +0100] Unable to bind socket for address [v1.::1]:631 - Cannot assign requested address.


W [29/Jan/2014:16:53:25 +0100] failed to CreateProfile: org.freedesktop.ColorManager.AlreadyExists:profile id 'Brother-MFC-7360N-Gray..' already exists
W [29/Jan/2014:16:53:25 +0100] failed to CreateDevice: org.freedesktop.ColorManager.AlreadyExists:device id 'cups-Brother-MFC-7360N' already exists

E [29/Jan/2014:07:54:01 +0100] Unknown directive SystemGroup on line 16 of /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.

Did I mention : Add the LPR package first !