Brother ADS-1000W Document Scanner

This post may be of interest for people who have the Brother ADS-1000W Document Scanner on Linux Mint 17. I am specifically using LM17.2 Rafaela, 64-bit version. This may also be relevant to people using certain other Brother Wireless products which I have not tested.

This is a nice little document scanner, and seems to work fairly well in Mint 17.2, after a somewhat pain-in-the-butt setup process, which is not necessarily very intuitive. I am writing down some notes here to save the next person a lot of time spent on trial-and-error. These instructions supplement - and don't replace - the instructions on Brother's website.

Before we get started, I like to use gscan2pdf (available in the software manager). In order to use it effectively, you may wish to install the following packages: unpaper, djvulibre-bin, gocr, although these packages are not required.

Please let me know if these instructions work for you!

 I go through the following in three different sections:

• Basic installation
• Network setup
• Changing scanner settings via the network

Basic installation:

1. To install the scanner, the first thing to do is visit Brother's website (http://support.brother.com). Navigate to the Downloads, find your device (under Document Scanners). I have the ADS-1 series.
2. Select "Linux" for your operating system
3. If you are running LM17, then you will want the "deb" file. Hit "search". I selected the 64-bit, but it will depend on your setup.
4. Read and understand the "Notes before downloading" section
5. Agree and download the file.
6. Follow the directions on the website (use dpkg in the command line).
7. Connect with printer USB cable and test with a scan program such as gscan2pdf. It may fail, because you may need superuser privileges. If it succeeds, proceed to step 9. You may wish to reboot the computer first.
8. To use the scanner as a "normal" (not "super") user, you can follow the instructions linked in step number 5 of the Brother webpage instructions. I personally followed the instructions for "Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04, 10.10, 11.4, 11.10, 12.04, 12.10" and rebooted, but this may not be necessary.
9. Your scanner should be working.

 But we can do better. If you have a compatible wireless router, you can pair the scanner with the router, and use it without the USB cable. This will also allow you to easily adjust the settings (get rid of that obnoxious beeping noise, for example).

Network installation:

1. Download the quick setup guide. Follow the instructions on page 11. Note: in my experience, it will not pair with a hidden network. You may have to unhide your network, and then rehide it once it is paired.
2. Find your scanner on the network. If you don't know how to do this, the following command in the terminal may help.
• sudo nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24|grep BRW
• This will return something like:
1. Nmap scan report for BRWA1238798AJA.Networkname (192.168.1.105) 
3. Note the IP address in parentheses (192.168.1.105). This will be important in the next step.
4. To configure your scanner, you use the brsaneconfig4 feature.
1. To add the network scanner, you can type something like this (note: do not use spaces in the name):
• brsaneconfig4 -a name="WhateverNameYouWant" model=ADS-1000W ip=192.168.1.105
• Obviously, you have to replace the 192.168.1.105 with the IP address that you found in your Nmap scan report.
2. To remove the scanner from your computer
• brsaneconfig4 -r name="WhateverNameYouWant"
3. To see other options, you can use brsaneconfig4 -h
4. To list all wireless brother scanner devices on your computer, simply use brsaneconfig4 -q and scroll to the bottom of the list.

To change scanner settings on network scanner:
 Simply take the scanner IP address (use brsaneconfig4 -q or the nmap command in step two of the network installation section) and put it in your web browser. You will see all manner of options there, including a way to turn off that obnoxious beeping noise.