Hi there!

I've got an (old) parallel port scanner (Brisa 310P) and a HP 4L printer. In my Windows XP configuration (which I don't much use), the cable goes from the parallel port into the printer and from the printer into the scanner. Both devices work perfectly (when the scanner driver doesn't spit the dummy, that is...).
I've tried the same in Linux, but to no avail. It seems that the scanner is not "seen", no matter what.
Hence, my question: is anyone aware of a solution/fix/workaround/configuration change for this?

Thanks a lot

And yes, I got here (this is my first post) because the SBLive! sound card doesn't work for me either - as for many other people who posted questions to this forum (it worked without a hitch in RH 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3). I tried most of the fixes suggested but none of them fixed the problem. I keep trying...

linux has *extremely* little support for parallel scanners, i would not ever expect it to work for you. printer should be easier though. you've not said how you're trying to get it "seen" though...

Thanks for that! It was what I expected anyway.
Just to clarify, I tried to connect the scanner directly to the PP, without the daisy arrangement described above and it was still not recognized by RH 7.* and RH 8.0.
Time to think about USB scanners, I suppose...
On not ncessarily related note, I just gave up on RH 8.0 and installed Mandrake 9.0. A dream! (this from a guy who has used RH for more than 5 years)
A few nasty things which drove me away from RH 8.0:
- SB Live! would not work, despite extensive fiddling
- Internet connection (modem) un-necessarily complicated (got it to work but I guess a few people will have troubles in doing the same)
- adding a FAT file system (mountable) to my fstab/mtab proved to be a task too hard...
- the PP printer (HP 4L, arguably the most common LJP) would not work properly - always send an empty sheet after the print job finishes (never did so in RH 7.*); again, fiddled a lot but to avail
- lack of backward compatibiliy with (some) RH 7.3 apps
- KDE being not KDE anymore
- generally, a "too much Windows like" feel
None of the above was a problem in Mandrake 9.0 (sound, printer, Internet, FAT file systems) and most of them were done automatically.
And now the hard ask: Puting IBM DB2, Oracle 9i, and IBM MQ Series on Mandrake. If that works, I will be a convert .

Out of curiosity, is there any particular reason that parallel scanners are not supported? Are they software-scanners, such as the software modems? I was just thinking about this the other day and I couldn't see why this would be the case since the parallel port is much older than Win95+ which is when the software issues started up, is it not?

Anyway, to clarify from that mad rant: is there a reason that parallel scanners don't generally work in Linux?

The paralel port scaners generaly use a propietary protocol.

look for "ppscsi" patch. Lots of scanners works with this (like my hp5600)

I've been trying to use ppscsi for my machine and can't seem to get it compiled. I also can't seem to find any good documentation on how to do this with a RH8.0 machine (I'm a newbie to Linux). Can anyone help?

Wich kernel are you trying to compile?

Some kernels crash with some locales.
Try with:
And look if you are using the correct ".config" file (read some kernel how to).