03.07.10
Brother MFC-9320CW
Just bought a Brother MFC-9320CW. It’s good so far. I use Ubuntu 9.10 for almost everything, and Brother actually supplies Linux drivers and source for both the printer and the scanner. The printer driver is just a PPD, but the scanner driver has some code-y components. But they provide a scanner .deb, even for 64-bit. In addition, the scanner is smart enough to be able to scan directly to a CIFS share, so if there are ever problems with the scanner driver, there’s still a decent way to scan.
The onboard web-based configuration software is pretty lackluster, but it does seem to do the job if you know what you’re doing and/or are curious enough (like, if you want to set up the CIFS parameters for scanning, don’t look under ‘Network Configuration’, and don’t try to find a ‘Scanner Settings’ like the ‘Fax Settings’ and ‘Printer Settings’… You have to find ‘Administrator Settings’ and the subpage ‘FTP/Network Scan Settings’ then ‘FTP/Network Scan Profile’.).
Since it’s all network-based and the onboard computer seems to be pretty smart, I can share it with all my computers easily and with Mac or Windows when I happen to be in those sort of modes.
The hardware is also good; the automatic document feeder is a big reason I got this model, and it seems to be robust and fast. Prints look very nice. I like the fact that it’s a toner system rather than an ink system, because I use my printer so seldom that inks would dry out on me between uses (though I haven’t used an inkjet in about 5 years, maybe they’re better now).
I’m not much for writing comprehensive reviews, but I just wanted to make a note for those who use Linux and were looking at this model. I’ll answer questions should any such person come around…
henry said,
April 11, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Finding accessories that will play nice with Linux is always tricky — thanks for the info. I am going to try this model.
David S. said,
April 15, 2011 at 4:45 am
Have you tried to compile the scanner drivers yourself? Do they provide all the needed information for building it? Or is the same approach as Canon does, where they just provide you with source code which depends on some pre-compiled binaries (from Canon) in addition?
Steven said,
April 15, 2011 at 8:48 am
I seem to remember being able to compile it a long while ago. Just now, though, I grabbed the source from http://www.brother.com/cgi-bin/agreement/agreement.cgi?dlfile=http://www.brother.com/pub/bsc/linux/dlf/brscan3-src-0.2.11-4.tar.gz&lang=English_source and was not very successful. There aren’t any good instructions, and just doing ‘make’ leads to several errors. I was able to fix one, but the next one was more difficult and I gave up for now. They claim to be GPL, but there appear to be some binary components in there without any source.
So, I dunno. Either they aren’t very good at software, or they’re hiding something, or both. Maybe not much better than your typical vendor in that respect.