Epson scanners iscan and sane/xsane howto FC3

[bgidney]

--- UPDATE ---
I am using a 3170 in Fedora Core 3 and have iscan and sane/xsane fully functional. I am running the install kernel. This has worked for all 2.6.8 and 2.6.9 kernels I have tested in FC2, FC3 Tests, and FC3 final. This should work with all epkowa supported scanners:
Perfection 610, Perfection 640U, Perfection 1200S, Perfection 1200U, Perfection 1200U PHOTO, Perfection 1240U, Perfection 1250, Perfection 1250 PHOTO, Perfection 1260, Perfection 1260 PHOTO, Perfection 1640SU, Perfection 1640SU PHOTO, Perfection 1650, Perfection 1650 PHOTO, Perfection 1660 PHOTO, Perfection2400 PHOTO, Perfection 2450 PHOTO, Perfection 3170 PHOTO, Perfection 3200 PHOTO, Perfection 4180 PHOTO, Perfection 4870 PHOTO, Perfection 4990 PHOTO, Expression 1600, Expression 1680, Expression 1640XL, Expression 10000XL, GT-10000, GT-10000+, GT-15000, GT-30000
NOTE: 610 and 640U have reported issues with lines in scan and it is suggested to fall back to 1.11.0 which is posted in the news item on the epkowa site.

NEW VERSION SOLVED MY PROBLEMS
1. Download iscan-1.13.0-3.i386.rpm from www.epkowa.co.jp
2. Open a terminal window and cd to the download directory.
3. sudo vi /etc/yum.conf
4. If enable gpgcheck=1 change it to enable gpgcheck=0
5. :wq
6. sudo yum localinstall iscan-1.11.0-0.i386.rpm
7. Power on scanner.
8. sudo cat /proc/bus/usb/devices and look for your scanner. In the output find this line:
P: Vendor=04b8 ProdID=0116 Rev= 1.00
You will need the ProdID for the next step.
9. Power off scanner.
10. sudo vi /etc/hotplug/usb/libsane.usermap
11. /Epson
12. Scroll to the line that most closley matches your model, I used the Perfection 3200.
13. Highlight the entire line (Epson to the last 0 preceeding the next Epson block).
14. Type i, press the Enter key, press the middle mouse button (or left and right together if you have no middle button)
15. Edit the line Changing the Title (I changed mine to: Epson Corp.|Perfection 3170) and change the ProdID to the one you found in Step 7 (0x0003 0x04b8 0x[ProdID]).
16. Press the ESC key and type :wq to save the changes and quit.
17. sudo vi /etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf
18. Change the last entries to look like this, using YOUR ProdID:
#usb /dev/usb/scanner0
usb 0x04b8 0x0116
DO NOT MAKE THE SYM LINK FOR GIMP PLUGIN, USE THE FOLLOWING INSTEAD
There is an issue with the library iscan uses versus sane and the simplest method of handling it is via an enviroment variable. In order to make this automatic and work in bash and csh I created 2 profile files in /etc/profile.d . I called the files iscanlib.sh (for bash) and iscanlib.csh (for csh). NOTE: THIS MUST BE DONE AS root and NOT THROUGH sudo!
19. su -
20. Type in root password
21. # echo "export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6">/etc/profile.d/iscanlib.sh
22. # chmod 755 /etc/profile.d/iscanlib.sh
23. # echo "setenv LD_PRELOAD /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6">/etc/profile.d/iscanlib.csh
24. # chmod 755 /etc/profile.d/iscanlib.csh
25. # exit
Note that the above points to the base link for libstdc++ version 6 major which points to the current version 6 file. This means that you only have to edit this when libstdc++ changes from the version 6 major.

In order to use the scanner immediately you must either log off and back on or issue one of the following commands depending on your shell (bash is default):
BASH: export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6
CSH: setenv LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6
Now you simply have to cycle the power.
NOTE: If you have the scanner turned on and connected prior to logging on you will need to cycle the power in order to have the correct device permissions to allow you to use the scanner.

That should take care of everything.

Bruce Gidney

I have tested both the flabed and TPU using iscan and xsane from Gimp. I encountered no problems with my scanner (3170). TPU scan times are longer and warmup times, for TPU and flatbed, are longer then I previously encountered but this is more inline with functionality under Windows XP.

[zipper]

I'm trying to configure my scanner (Epson 1260 Photo) using your instructions and have run into a problem. All is well up to step 7. When I enter this command, line P says, "P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 2.06." instead of P: Vendor=04b8 ProdID=0116 Rev =1.00 as you say in the instructions. Any suggestions?

[zipper]

Ignore my previous post. I repeated the instructions and this time I found my scanner in the list and am continuing on. Sorry.

[pkands]

Excellent! Works great.

[bgidney]

zipper - I am glad it worked out for you. Is there anythig in the instructions that could be reworded to make it clearer?

pkands - In your opinion are the instructions easy to follow?

I will attempt to keep this howto up to date and will refine the instructions based on input from all to make it as easy to follow and clear as is possible.

Thank you all!

[zipper]

Thanks bgidney for your help, but I'm still having problems. I followed all 22 steps as listed in your original post. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. I restarted my computer and logged back in. I unplugged the scanner and USB cables and plugged them back in. The scanner is on. In terminal I entered "iscan," and got an error message from iscan which says, "Could not send command to scanner. Check the scanner's status."

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

[bossfrog]

One possiblity is that you did not complete Bruce Gidney's instruction #15 (commenting out /dev/usb/scanner0 in /etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf and adding a line: usb, or usb followed by the vendor and product ID numbers).

[bossfrog]

Thank you, bgidney, for your instructions.

I found that I did not need to use instructions #16-22 in order to have a fully functional iscan. I installed the latest iscan (iscan-1.12.0-4.i386.rpm). I only plug in my scanner after I have already logged on to my PC as a user; this seems to take care of any permission problems. I am using FC3 and have an Epson Perfection 1660 Photo scanner.

[bgidney]

zipper - bossfrog is right, if you do not complete step 15 (or do not put in your scanner's id instead of mine in the example) you will get that precise message.

bossfrog - thanks for the information on iscan-1.12.0-4, it seems (from your experience) that they have solved the issues with the libraries making steps 16 - 22 unessecary. I updated to iscan-1.12.0-4 and noted that all I needed to do was re-edit /etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf .

Has anyone else had the same experience as bossfrog?

[Finalzone]

I found out Epson is widely supported on Linux distros than let's say Canon. I am considering to change all-in-one printer.

[dwdrumrboy]

bgidney, thank you for the step-by-step, unfortunately I am still having problems as well. I am running FC3, with the 2.6.9-1.681_FC3smp kernel.

A note, instead of completing the steps as super do "sudo", I executed them as root. Any problems with completing the steps as root?

I installed the iscan-1.12.0-4.i386.rpm and received no errors.

When I lauch iscan from bash, iscan loads, but the scanner does not initialize and the bulb doesn't light up. I receive the error message "Could not send command to the scanner. Check the scanner's status".

Gimp 2.0 just hangs at the "Initalizing Plugins". I created a symbloic link as my regular user: ln -s /usr/bin/iscan ~/.gimp-2.0/plug-ins/.

Being fairly new at Linux, I read in varoius forums about running "modprobe" and looked at the man pages, but wasn't sure if I needed to do this or even how to correctly do this. Do I need to look at the devices, if so - how? Since I got g4u to work properly, I guess I shouldn't worry too much.

In the hardware browser, I see the Epson scanner listed under "System Devices", but the driver is "unknown".

The main item, as compared to XP (which the scanner works fine), is that the scanner itself is not initalizing, hence the error messgaes. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks - dwdrumrboy

CPU: Dual Xeon 2.8 GHz
Motherboard: SuperMicro X5DAL-TG2
Memory: 1 GB ECC DDR-266 (PC2100)
Storage: Maxtor 120 GB SATA, WD 80 GB SATA, WD 80 IDE, 36 GB IBM U320 SCSI
Optical: Yamaha CRW-F1, Sony RW DRU-700A, Pioneer DVD-305S
Video: Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 (Generic driver)
Sound: Creative SB Live! Platinum
OS: Fedora Core 3 (2.6.9-1.681_FC3smp) and Windows XP Professional SP2

[zipper]

Hi bgidney. I'm still having trouble with getting my Epson Perfection 1260 Photo scanner to work using the above instructions. I've followed everything to the letter, except the sudo commands. I'm not familiar with sudo so please be patient. Here's what happens. I complete steps 1 & 2 above. In the terminal window I am not logged in as su. I enter "sudo vi ...." and I am asked for a password. Neither my regular login password or my root password works. Is there something else I need to set up first?

I logged in as su, and then entered all of the steps exactly as listed, except for step 16 & 17, because I am already logged in as root. Should these steps work even if I enter all steps as su?

Thanks for answering my questions.

[bgidney]

All - It appears that iscan-1.12.0-4 has broken my configuration. iscan will open but does not activate scanner. I am working on this and will post as soon as I resolve it.

[zovirl]

Zipper, I found an easier way to get my 1260 scanner to work:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=28218

Hopefully it will still work for you after installing all that other stuff

[trigpoint]

I have followed the above instructions and have iscan-1.12.0-4 installed on fedora core 3.

I can now get into iscan, when I press preview, the "waiting for scanner to warm up" message appears the scanner moves, then it hangs leaving the warming up message.

Any ideas.

Thanks