[ale] Document Scanner Recommendations

[DJPfulio at jdpfu.com]

I have a Brother MFC-240C - probably from 2008-ish. Bought to be a scanner with ADF and fax machine. Never bought any ink for it.

Initially, the brother drivers 'just worked', but it wasn't native support.
I think newer, more expensive (they are all more expensive now) MFCs have the ability to scan directly to USB or SDHC or ... a few other places without any computer.  I'd look for that going forward to avoid the entire driver need for scanning.

**Regardless of Linux support today, assume it will fade for Brother Scanning. Get a scanner that will scan to directly inserted flash media.**

Just a few days ago, I needed to scan some stuff for my records (govt crap) and after screwing around with the brother drivers yet again, gave up, booted a Win7 box that hadn't been booted in 5+ months, connected the scanner to it and pressed the "Scan" button.  The ADF sucked the pages in, and the bmp files (or was it png/jpeg/tiff?) were dropped somewhere useless on the Windows machine. I quickly pulled those over to a Linux system so they'd get backed up and setup an 'at' job to delete the file next quarter (after the govt confirmed response arrives).  I prefer to have my document management and retention as automated as possible. ;)

Anyway, it was a hassle which can be avoided these days. Scan -to- USB storage.

About 5 yrs ago was the last time I 100% know that MFC worked with Linux. I used gscantopdf a bunch to scan lots of family documents and ensure text keywords for those documents were _under_ the scanned images so a normal computer search could find them easily.  No complaints about document feed, scanning, or photo scanning.  For negatives and slides, I have a different device which gained Linux support magically when it wasn't supported for a long time.

I've probably scanned less than 500 pages with the device, so did I get my $65 out of it?  Eh ... perhaps not.  The convenience has been lost.

I still avoid network printers, scanners, etc. Seems they like to phone home these days.  Screw that.


On 6/16/22 08:44, Ed Cashin via Ale wrote:
> I got a brother ads-2000 on eBay that was missing the feeder, because these will scan to USB drive.
> 
> Then I can put the drive into my Linux laptop, and the whole drivers problem never has to bother me.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2022 at 6:20 AM Jonathan Meek via Ale <ale at ale.org <mailto:ale at ale.org>> wrote:
> 
>     Hey folks,
> 
>     I wanted to see if anyone had scanner recommendations that work well with Linux. I am looking at the Brother line of document scanners but didn’t easy Linux support based on an internet search.
> 
>     Thanks,
> 
>     Jonathan
> 
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> -- 
>    Ed Cashin <ecashin at noserose.net <mailto:ecashin at noserose.net>>
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