i use a RPi as print server for my printer/scanner Brother DCP-7040 with latest Raspbian and Jessie sources. The printer behaves well thanks to Gutenprint 5.2.10 and an ad hoc PPD file, no problem on this side
I would also appreciate to use the scanner of my DPC-7040 over the network. I have read the way to do that with Sane and the procedure seems clear to me. Nevertheless, the first step is to make the scanner working
Brother provides Linux drivers for their products but only as packages (DEB and RPM) compiled for i386 and amd64 architecture... and, of course, nothing for armhf. I wrote to them but i still wait for an answer... with a limitated hope, it goes without saying In a nutshell, for now, my scanner is unusable through the RPi and i did not find any way to change that on this forum or around internet. However, one thing comes to my mind: i know that printers with CUPS can be used with a raw driver on the server side and the true driver on the client side only.
Is it feasible to do the same thing for a scanner with Sane? I mean, install the Brother drivers for the scanner in my desktop system and use the scanner over network. The RPi should become an "access point" only to the device. Am i dreaming or such a solution is possible?
Help me Obi Wan Kanobi
Thanks!