Scanning Slides under FC[123]

[Gerry Tool]

Glen Staufer wrote:

>On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:44:30 -0600, Brian Fahrlander
><brian at fahrlander.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>    I have a great number of slides slowly decaying in their storage
>>area.  I guess I could put'em on a flat-bed and take my chances, but
>>since I don't have a scanner now, maybe I shouook into buying a
>>slide-scanner.
>>
>>    Are these things generally like a regular scanner in terms of
>>installation, or do they use funky USB mechanisms?  Anyone have
>>experience with something like this?
>>
>>    
>>
>
>I have a Minolta Dimage V and use vuescan.  It works like a charm with
>only a few problems.
>
>- couldn't get it to work under Linux with USB 1.1.  The scanner would
>lock up.  XP handled the USB 1.1 connection just fine.   My desktop
>system has USB 2 and the problems went away.
>- whenever I scan to a tiff file, the file loads up into Gimp.  I
>haven't figured out how to get it to scan to a disk file yet.
>- vuescan needs to be run as root.  This is new with my installation
>of FC3; under the TEST versions, my normal user account could access
>the scanner.  I've tried a mod to the usbscanner script to set the
>permissions to allow non-root users to access the scanner, but I don't
>have the answer yet.
>
>--Glenn
>
>  
>
I don't know if this is your problem or not, but ...

There is an unresolved bug that incorrectly sets the permissions on usb 
scanners.  One way to make it work as a user is to unplug/plug in the 
usb cable to the scanner after boot.  This is a PITA and probably is not 
good for the connector in the long run.  The alternative is to write a 
script that changes the permissions.

First, you need to identify the file with scanimage -L or sane-find 
scanner run as root.

In my case,
[root at gstpc-fc3 acroread]# scanimage -L
device `epson:libusb:003:002' is a Epson Perfection1240 flatbed scanner

Then create a script; in my case I have /usr/local/bin/fixscan which has 
a single line

chmod a+w /proc/bus/usb/003/002

I run fixscan as root after reboot and the scanner is then usable by my 
normal user account.

Hope this is useful.

Gerry