Jim Avera (jim.avera at gmail dot com). Updated 15 January 2018
Brother's "Driver Install Tool" fails to install scanner functionality becuase of a missing dependency. The brscan4 package requires libusb but there is no package with that name in Ubuntu 17.10. There is, however, a libusb-1.0-0 which seems to work; however the incompatible name change means that the dependency coded into the brscan4 package prevents normal installation.
It worked for me to use Brother's "Driver Install Tool", then manually force-install brscan4 and configure the scanner using brsaneconfig4.
The libusb-1.0-0 package is also needed, and it was included in a fresh install of Ubuntu 17.10 using only the standard repos. However my personal desktop system, which has a more complicated history, was lacking that package for some reason (possibly because of the repositories I enabled). I had to manually install it.
Brother documents a litany of manual setup tasks here , but they are unnecessary when using the "Driver Install Tool".
Here is the complete procedure:
A network printer/scanner normally gets its IP address from your router each time it boots, using the DHCP protocol. There are two ways to use a "static" IP address:
Most routers have a management web interface at http://«gateway ip» . "route -n" will show the «gateway ip».
Visit http://www.brother-usa.com/support/
Search for «printer model»
Select "Linux (deb)"
Click "Driver Install Tool"
Agree to EULA, then SAVE the downloaded file
When asked "Will you specify the Device URI?" reply Y.
Select the option# for "Specify IP address"
Enter the MFC's static IP address
The scanner driver will fail to install because of the missing dependency, but this will be fixed later.
Visit http://localhost:631
Click "Printers" in the top banner, then your printer name
Administration->Set as Server Default (if desired)
Enter your username & pw when prompted
This may not be necessary now, but in earlier Ubuntu releases, CUPS was left in a bad state and/or multiple copies of the cupsd daemon were running.
Note: My MFC needs package brscan4, but older devices might need brscan, brscan2, or brscan3 instead; Brother's Driver Install Tool will download the correct .deb for your device. The utility installed will be called brsanconfig2, etc.
$ cd $HOME/Downloads # wherever you ran the Driver Install Tool.Your scanner should now be detected!
But if not, try this:
$ dpkg-query -l '*libusb*'If libusb-something is not shown as installed, then:
$ sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0-0Now "scanimage -L" should work.