SCX-4729FW success, mixed feelings.

[bob]

I finally found out how to make the SCX-4729FW work in Ubuntu 12.04 (64bit) as a network connected scanner but it wasn't easy.

I tried the unified binary drivers distributions on Samsung's website, but aside from installing sketchy UIs it didn't help and xsane had no idea there was a network scanner to be found. It didn't help that the printer could be USB connected since much of the information available online would target this type of configuration or a network sharing through saned...

I finally worked out that I could use the IP directly in /etc/sane.d/xerox_mfp.conf (writing 'tcp <IP>' on a specific line) and it sortof got the scanner detected, but sometimes it would end up in a limbo state and I would hve to reboot it so that it unfroze.

After quite some googling I found this website with all the driver packages neetly organized, installed them and voilà, it now works quite much better !

The thing that I'm wondering now is :
- Why aren't those drivers included in standard Ubuntu (and other distros) repos ? It would probably save LOTS of time if it was the case.
- Why aren't they disitrbuted on launchpad (which would've greatly simplified my search, and would benefit from all the community tools integration) ? I recon that they are for more distros than just Ubuntu but maybe an empty launchpad project redirecting here would've helped.

Anyhow, thanks for the great work !

[bchemnet]

The answer to your first question is given on this page:
http://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/repository.html

Ubuntu has a more developed structure than Debian for distributing closed-sourced materials, but because Samsung has refused to clarify the legal aspects of distribution, the distributions are correctly assuming that they do not have the right to distribute.  I would be happy to collaborate with anyone who wanted to set up distribution-specific packages and try to get them incorporated into an official repository, but that is beyond what I can commit to for the near future.

Your second question is also partially addressed there, mainly that I don't have time.  (This whole project has grown far beyond what I expected when I started it.)  However, I have no objection if someone else wanted to set up a Launchpad project and point to this website.  That is essentially what an Arch Linux user did when setting up the Arch package.

[bob]

I understand the legal fog surrounding that distribution and shame on Samsung for being half-collaborative with the Linux community.
Obviously my "mixed feelings" were not with the hard work you've accomplished already but with the pain of getting this smoothly working for all users (let's be honest, the probability that a non-tech user would be able to get this up and running right after having his AIO printer plugged is infinitesimal).

I hope that packages could be distributed through launchpad ppa some day in the future, I might also consider modifying Ubuntu's own doc :

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkPrintingWithUbuntu
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ScanningHowTo
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HpAllInOne

so as to at least link to this repo.

Thanks a lot for the answer !

[bchemnet]

Obviously my "mixed feelings" were not with the hard work you've accomplished already but with the pain of getting this smoothly working for all users (let's be honest, the probability that a non-tech user would be able to get this up and running right after having his AIO printer plugged is infinitesimal).

Believe me, that I understand.  This whole thing started when I spent days trying to get my printer working several years ago, and decided to share the results of that, and then tried to simplify and accomodate requests over the years.  The fact that so many thousands of people are using this is so amazing to me partly because I still view it as having a substantial technical hurdle, and so I can only imagine how many might still be struggling.