I've been testing using a Epson Perfection 1260 scanner with xsane in both Xubuntu and Puppy Linux. It works, but the resulting images seem to lack the quality provided by Epson Twain in Windows.

Compare a scanned pen from Epson Twain with this scan from xsane. The default lighting in xsane is darker, but I know how to adjust that. The real problem is the jagged, poor quality look of the xsane scan.

Further tests, this time scanning a pencil:

• http://www.maj.com/gallery/BuilderQ/...il-windows.png
• http://www.maj.com/gallery/BuilderQ/...il-xubuntu.png
• http://www.maj.com/gallery/BuilderQ/...ncil-puppy.png

See, even though the Xubuntu one is light enough, the edges of the pencil have an unrefined look. What can I do about this?

While I'm on this topic, how can I make xsane on Puppy Linux remember that the scanner is a USB one (I have to click "USB" every time I run it), and disable the warning not to run xsane as root?

It's my understanding that binary iscan driver+frontend Epson provides is generally better at scanning (if worse in gui design) than the open source drivers, because they keep all the best interface stuff for themselves. You can download the driver from the Avasys link in my sig.

If you're really interested in quality, you might be interested in purchasing the VueScan driver. I believe it's the best of all. Again, the link is below.