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By DiBosco at 2010-01-20 07:45
Getting a scanner to work in Linux is basically simple with xsane, but can be slightly tricky in that you sometimes need Windows drivers which contain the firmware required by the scanner. As devices often rely on the PC having the device's latest firmware (firmware is just a name for embedded software), you need to make that firmware available and have to let sane know where that firmware is located.
So, first of all, install xsane from your repository. This will install xsane, sane and all dependencies. In Mandriva (my distribution of choice) I simply typed (as root) urpmi xsane
You then need to get the Windows drivers I'm afraid. I got them from here:
You then need to use wine to install the drivers. I did try to extract the relevant file using ark, but it was having none of it.
You will find the file you want somewhere in your ~/.wine subdirectories. For me, it was ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Agfa/ScanWise 2_00. The file you need is:
SnapScan 1212U_2.bin
I copied this file to ~/ and took out the space in the filename.
Copy the file SnapScan1212U_2.bin (as root) to:
/usr/share/sane/snapscan/
You will probably have to create the snapscan subdirctory.
I ended up opening a konsole and navigated to my home directory where I'd used konqueror to copy and rename the file from the wine installation. I then typed this as root:
cp SnapScan1212U_2.bin /usr/share/sane/snapscan/
I believe you can sometimes use your file manager as root, so you might just find that easier if you have that option.
Next, as root, modify /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf
You will find at the top, these two lines:
# Change to the fully qualified filename of your firmware file, if
# firmware upload is needed by the scanner
Thanks for that only I would have needed it years ago, when I had that scanner...took a moment back then to figure out how to make it work under Linux, having installed (X)Sane for the first time as well. The scanner does still exist, but has been replaced by a printer-scanner-copier which doesn't need manual tricks (as of now) in order to work.
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