USB Scanners have a mind of their own!

zzano · 2005-11-28 21:36:54

I am currently running Arch .71 (Gnome with a 2.6.14 kernel) and have managed to put together a reasonably good workstation... with one exception... my Epson Perfection 610 scanner. I have read the Wiki on USB scanner installation and attempted to implement it. I have also been reading / searching the net and various forums for enlightenment on how to accomplish my goal. There are many different suggestions and procedures out there and I dare say that no two of them are alike. They run the gamet form permissions to groups and hotplg anomolies. Specifically, with regard to the Wiki instructions:

* I have installed both sane and xsane via pacman.
* the Sane homepage indicates that my scanner is supported.
* sane-find- scanner reports a "found USB scanner message"
* scanimage -L indicates device 'epson:libsub:001:003:
* attempting to produce a test image yields a file of only 2.8kb (obviously too small)
* gpasswd informs me that group:scanner is unknown. I verified this by checking all current groups and "scanner" was not listed. Still "no scanner found" messages appear. I have confirmed that the scanner works fine under both XP and Ubuntu.

I would like to continue up the learning curve with Arch as it grows on you very quickly. However, I would appreciate any help I can get on this subject. In my research I was quite surprised to see how many people are currently experiencing the same problem irrespective o the distro being used. USB has been around for quite a while yet it seems to still have difficulty handling scanners.

Irrespective of the outcome I would like to thank the Arch developers for a great opportunity to learn more about what goes on under the covers in Linux.

Regards to all fellow Archers

Mr Green · 2005-11-28 21:57:47

Have you setup your scanner in /etc/sane.d ?

You may need to edit configs in there to get your scanner working

All I can say is Google is your friend look for a config to suit your scanner ;-)

HTH

(btw I had problems setting up my scanner but in the end you will be rewarded!)

Snowman · 2005-11-28 22:11:25

The scanner group should have been created when you installed the sane package. Try reinstalling sane. If the scanner group is still not created, you can add it manually with:

# groupadd -g 96 scanner

zzano · 2005-11-28 22:56:37

Thanks for both responses.

1. according to the Arch Wiki the only thing that is required in the /etc/sane.d/epson.conf file is an uncommented "usb", as the scanner is supported by the backend sane.

2. I added scanner as per your suggestion (groupadd -g 96 scanner). If I try to run xsane as myself I get "scanner not found." If I run it as root, I get a "failed to start scanner: invalid argument:

3. with regard to google I can't seem to find anything different that I might try.

There has to be a systematic way to approach this problem as it is quite common.

Snowman · 2005-11-29 01:05:54

When you googled, did you search for the error messages? google:failed to start scanner: invalid argument:
I've never setup a scanner so I can't help you more.

scarecrow · 2005-11-29 07:35:34

I have set my Epson Perfection 1640SU quite some time ago, and I had to create the "scanner" group by hand, and add the user there.
It works mighty fine, either with the USB or with the SCSI interface.
Are you running HAL, or not?

zzano · 2005-11-29 13:35:57

Thanks Scarecrow. Yes, I had to create the scanner group manually as it did not exist. At present, my user name is the only group member. Should root be a member?

I don't know exactly what HAL is? Please advise.

I don't understand why the wiki instructions do not work as they are execllent in most other areas. I'm using the stock kernel that came with Arch .71. If this is a bug in Arch I wish someone would confirm that for me. If not, I seem to be running out of options.

Regards

scarecrow · 2005-12-01 22:24:31

HAL= hardware abstraction layer.
If using USB and other devices you're supposed to
pacman -Sy hal
and then put "dbus" and "hal" (with that particular order) in the daemons array of /etc/rc.conf

Arch Linux

#1 2005-11-28 21:36:54

USB Scanners have a mind of their own!

#2 2005-11-28 21:57:47

Re: USB Scanners have a mind of their own!

#3 2005-11-28 22:11:25

Re: USB Scanners have a mind of their own!

#4 2005-11-28 22:56:37

Re: USB Scanners have a mind of their own!

#5 2005-11-29 01:05:54

Re: USB Scanners have a mind of their own!

#6 2005-11-29 07:35:34

Re: USB Scanners have a mind of their own!

#7 2005-11-29 13:35:57

Re: USB Scanners have a mind of their own!

#8 2005-12-01 22:24:31

Re: USB Scanners have a mind of their own!

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