i have preciouse little disk space...
and yet i am having to waste a 1 gig just to hold windows2000 which is only booted once every week or so to do some scanning / photo copying.

my scanner is on the unsupported list (even with libusb)
and doesnt look like i t will ever be supported.

also, although my digital camera works,
the dirvers are buggy, and it takes serveral attempts to upload the pictures.

i understand why it is so hard for linux,
the hardware manufacturer only make windows drivers,
and incist on useing non-standard protocols, so its neer impossible for
linux kernel hackers to develop drivers.

are we ever likely to see a change ?
or are linux home users doomed to have to keep
windows for these little things linux cannot do ?

Well, as cheap as scanners are nowadays, I suppose going out and buying a supported brand would be one option Another option (though I've not tried it and have no idea if it'd work) might be to scan using Wine, Bochs, VMWare, or some such.

The situation may change once Linux gains enough popularity that scanner manufacturers start supporting it. I wouldn't hold my breath though...

i use wine to run games, but after trying to use wine to install my windows modem driver was a complete failture, i gave thought it not possible to use wine for drivers....

but with the simplicity of scanner drivers,, (its just a dll that my scanner software loads i think)

i suppose it might be worth a try