System Setup: Scanner

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Table of Contents

• Scanner
  • Installation
  • xscanimage
  • Photocopy

Scanner

Installation

After learning SCSI cards and cables are expensive, I tried for USB. Did the work on fred, because it has more disk space and faster processor for image manipulation.

SUSE6.4 said it was backpatched for usb. I installed sane. Following the instructions in /usr/src/linux-2.2.14.SuSE/Documentation/usb/, esp. scanner.txt and scanner-hp-sane.txt:

1. Run lspci -v, which indicates we have a uhci-style usb.

2. Make the device:

     cd /dev
     rm usbscanner   # it was setup wrong
     mknod /dev/usbscanner c 180 48 
     chmod a+rw /dev/usbscanner
   

3. Edit modules.conf. Uncomment the 180 line, and add the usb-uchi alias, post-install, and options lines. Not sure if the vendor/product data is needed, but those are the values for a HP 6300C.

   #=====================================
   # USB
   alias char-major-166	  acm
   alias char-major-180	  usbcore
   alias char-major-240	  usb-serial
   alias usb-uhci uhci
   post-install usb-uhci modprobe scanner 
   options scanner vendor=0x03f0 product=0x0601
   #=====================================
   

4. Add it:

     modprobe usb-uhci
     modprobe scanner
     lsmod    #shows uchi and scanner installed
   

5. Establish it for startup:

     (edit /etc/rc.config:)
     START_USB="yes"
     (edit /etc/rc.config.d/usb.rc.config:)
     USB_HCI="usb-uhci"
     USB_DRIVERS="scanner"
   

6. Setup sane:

     cd /etc/sane.d
     (edit dll.conf, commenting out all but hp)
     (edit hp.conf to show:)
     /dev/usbscanner
     option connect-device
   

xscanimage

Run xscanimage. Main window gives control options. Set filename to dir which has lots of space, e.g. /usr/local/proj/xyz.pnm.

Select Preview window...Acquire preview. Drag mouse over desired section to get dashed-line crop region. Acquire region again, resetting main window controls as needed. In general, use 300 dpi (600 dpi makes big files).

After getting a good preview, select Scan on the main window. Then convert to png or other format:

  cd /usr/local/proj
  convert xyz.pnm xyz.png

Conversion is a major undertaking, using swap space and plenty of cpu.

Photocopy

Set to:

• scan mode: lineart
• dpi: 300
• brightness: -60
• contrast: 10
• authreshold: on

Do the preview to be sure the text shows. Then select scan. Then print:

  cd /usr/local/proj/
  convert xyz.pnm xyz.png
  lpr xyz.png