On one of my Slackware boxes I noticed a group called scanner with an assigned group ID of 93. The group does not exist on my other Slack box. With a GID of less than 100, the group was created automagically somewhere and not by me. I'd be grateful if anybody knows which Slackware package, if any, created that group. I searched /var/log/scripts and the sane tgz package and found no clues.

Additionally, which groups does root need to be or should be a member of? As the ultimate super user does root need to be a member of any group? If so, why? I'm curious about the correct manner in which to configure groups and root. For example, I notice root is a member of several groups, but curiously not others, such as slocate.

I believe hotplug assigns your scanner to this group so that you can use it as non-root. I don't know how it's added, but if I remember correctly, before 10.2 you had to add the group "scanner" manually. (At least that's one possible explanation for why it's not on all of your boxes.)

You remember correctly---good memory! Your response prompted to scan (pun intended) the 10.2 change log. The scanner group was added with the a/etc package. That resolves the first question---thank you.