[cups] Brother vs cups, 0,1 in favor of cups

Sat Nov 3 15:18:15 PDT 2018

On Saturday 03 November 2018 16:04:08 Brian Potkin wrote:

> On Sat, 3 Nov 2018 at 17:21, Gene Heskett <gheskett at shentel.net> wrote:
> > To continue this thread, I've gone to the brother site and found an
> > installer script that pulled all the latest driver debs & what not,
> > over-writing the original i386 installs with amd64 versions. That of
>
> That script is amazing, considering that Brother say
>
>  > I'm using a Linux 64 bit edition. Can I use the Brother Linux
>
> printer drivers?

I don't see why not. Shouldn't be a problem as long as its plugged into 
a usb port. Where its getting covered with nasty hair is when you are 
using cat5 and an ipv4 address. I rebooted just to get the startup
messages, and some in the (I presume) udev camp has decided that only one
device per address is to be allowed. Scattered thru the syslog:

Nov  3 13:58:50 coyote avahi-daemon[4577]: Host name conflict for "scanner.local", not established.
Nov  3 13:58:50 coyote saned[4684]: saned (AF-indep+IPv6) from sane-backends 1.0.22 starting up
Nov  3 13:58:50 coyote saned[4684]: do_bindings: [0] bind failed: Address already in use

later in the log:

Nov  3 13:58:53 coyote xinetd[4771]: Reading included configuration file: /etc/xinetd.d/amanda [file=/etc/xinetd.conf] [line=14]
Nov  3 13:58:54 coyote xinetd[4771]: failed to parse raspberrypi.coyote.den [file=/etc/xinetd.d/amanda] [line=8]

but I've already fixed that, the pi's hostname got changed, then the door-
bell woke me up, a dinner delivery from our church.  Wayyyyy to sweet for 
us diabetics so some of it will go in the square can.

To get back on track:

Nov  3 13:58:54 coyote xinetd[4771]: bad service attribute: ipv6 [file=/etc/xinetd.d/saned] [line=8]
Commented that line out.

Then 25 lines later:
Nov  3 13:58:54 coyote xinetd[4771]: bind failed (Address already in use (errno = 98)). service = sane-port
Nov  3 13:58:54 coyote xinetd[4771]: Service sane-port failed to start and is deactivated.
Nov  3 13:58:54 coyote xinetd[4771]: bind failed (Address already in use (errno = 98)). service = ssh
Nov  3 13:58:54 coyote xinetd[4771]: Service ssh failed to start and is deactivated.

But ssh is working just fime, I am logged into 6 other local machines, 
and have 3 of them also sshfs mounted that mount with keys.

I might be able to find it with a usb cable but I'd have to double the 
length of the cable as the first 40"+ of it is inside this printer. So 
it would take well over the maximum unbuffered usb cable length of 5 
feet to reach it from any of the usb hubs laying around.  The only one 
with matching connectors is holding a 7 port hub up in the air by about
a foot. Roughly the same length as the height of a mahogany paper and 
ink storage (and anything else I want out of sight) cabinet I made, and 
that the MFC is sitting on the top of. 

And it looks like it might be working, from dmesg when I plugged it in:
[14060.260317] usb 1-3.4.3: new high-speed USB device number 21 using ehci-pci
[14060.374449] usb 1-3.4.3: New USB device found, idVendor=04f9, idProduct=02f5
[14060.374453] usb 1-3.4.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[14060.374456] usb 1-3.4.3: Product: MFC-J6920DW
[14060.374458] usb 1-3.4.3: Manufacturer: Brother
[14060.374459] usb 1-3.4.3: SerialNumber: BROG5F229909
[14060.375378] usblp 1-3.4.3:1.0: usblp3: USB Bidirectional printer dev 21 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04F9 pid 0x02F5
[14060.375618] usb-storage 1-3.4.3:1.3: USB Mass Storage device detected
[14060.375702] scsi16 : usb-storage 1-3.4.3:1.3
[14061.392796] scsi 16:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Brother  MFC-J6920DW      1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[14061.393089] sd 16:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0
[14061.472613] sd 16:0:0:0: [sdf] Attached SCSI removable disk

Yup:

gene at coyote:~/Downloads/SDC-upgrade/CoCo$ scanimage -L
device `brother4:bus2;dev1' is a Brother MFC-J6920DW USB scanner

And xsane connects, ready to scan, so that is butt ugly but it works. 
But anyone disturbing this midden heap will destroy it all. One of
that guy Murphy's laws.  Sigh.
>
> > Yes. Brother printer drivers are created and optimized for 32 bit
> > version of Linux, but those can be used for 64 bit Linux also. Some
> > additional steps are required.
>
> They then go on to give instructions.

Yeah, what they DO give comes with bloodstains from their legal people, 
but if they say it, its quite likely so.

> There are no 64-bit drivers from Brother but you seem to have hunted
> them out. No wonder ordinary users find printing difficult. You really
> must reveal your secret
> technique!
>
> [Snip]
>
No secret, just point FF at brothers site, and drill down to your printer 
model, and in my case theres at least two more subdirs, but you'll 
eventually get a list of debs for both cpu families, click on the 
i386 versions and follow the links to save them locally.

I made a subdir in ~/Downloads/brother-drivers:
-rw-r--r-- 1 gene gene     1558 Nov  2 20:55 brother-udev-rule-type1-1.0.2-0.all.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    87658 Sep 12 02:33 brscan4-0.4.6-1.amd64.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 gene gene    75124 Nov  2 20:19 brscan4-0.4.6-1.i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    50852 Sep  5  2013 brscan-skey-0.2.4-1.amd64.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 gene gene    44942 Nov  2 20:54 brscan-skey-0.2.4-1.i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 gene gene 24902333 Nov  2 22:37 mfc6920dw_use_busr_lel566001_a.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    15348 Nov  2 20:37 mfcj6920dwcupswrapper-3.0.0-1a.i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    15398 Jan 10  2014 mfcj6920dwcupswrapper-3.0.0-1.i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 gene gene    22764 Nov  2 20:21 mfcj6920dw_cupswrapper_GPL_source_3.0.0-1.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2957378 Nov  2 20:37 mfcj6920dwlpr-3.0.0-1a.i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 gene gene  2957186 Nov  2 21:02 mfcj6920dwlpr-3.0.0-1.i386.deb

So I didn't have to wade thru all the trash to find them. You just have to
keep your shovel handle clean and keep digging.

> > But scanimage -l still can't find the scanner even with the i386
> > versions of its drivers re-installed.  Its address on the local net
> > pings just fine, its the same as the printer, but sending FF to that
> > address gets no mention of there also being a scanner at that same
> > address.
>
> "-l" is a typo, we suppose. Brother do provide instructions for a
> scanner setup.

-l and -L are the same except -L digs a deeper trench as root.

Anyway, my problems seem to have been reduced to a not quite perfect but 
usable state, so until the next bug comes crawling out of the plastic 
with a target painted on its back, I can get on to other things.

Thanks everybody.

And maybe, just maybe, I've helped someone else battling with generally
good, brother products.  That would be nice, I like flowers but dasn't
dare breath on them. :(

-- 
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>