We need to add a rule for the Brother MFC-240C. The dVendor is 04f9 and idProduct is 01ab. # Brother MFC-240C SYSFS{idVendor}=="04f9", SYSFS{idProduct}=="01ab", SYMLINK+="scanner-%k"
Does upstream (http://www.sane-project.org) know about this already? I'm fine with adding such a patch for the current version, but like to have this supported for future versions by upstream, to avoid patch creep. I assume that with the lines added, the scanner works flawlessly, correct?
I was not sure if 60-libsane.rules came from upstream or was generated by Fedora. It has now been reported to upstream as well. The information on this came as part of helping the owner get this working. He reports that it is working now. The problem he was having was no symlink, and bad permissions. I figured it was better that I report it, and get it included, then to just do a local fix. I pulled the idVendor and idProduct from his posted lsusb output, and generated the rules for him.
Hmm, I don't find any supported Brother machines yet. Which SANE backend do you use?
You have to get the drivers from http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/sane_drivers.html They are not included in the sane-backends package. But there are many Brother scanner/multi-function devices listed in 60-libsane.rules.
In that case, this isn't a bug ;-). I guess if the other models are listed in the shipped udev rules, they're supported by a shipped SANE driver as well. You should put the rules you need into a separate rules file; just copy 60-libsane.rules to e.g. 70-brother.rules, throw out the existing scanner rules and add the rules above. I've looked at the brother drivers, but they don't seem to be completely open source (the source packages ship with pre-built libraries) otherwise a volunteer could package them up for Fedora.
This is true. But udev should still create the scanner-<something> symlink for it. There are rules for other Brother multi-function machines that do not have SANE drivers yet. So to be consistant, this rule should be added, or all rules for Brother MFCs that do not have a SANE driver should be removed. We did create a rules file just for the MFC-240C, but hopefully upstearm will add it to the libsane udev rules. As far as packaging them goes, Brother has RPMs that work with Fedora. There package for handling pressing the scan key on a network printer is interesting.
Udev can create the necessary links, but the rules files belong to the driver. If upstream ships rules without a matching driver, I won't patch it out, but I also won't patch in rules for which no driver exists.