Hello, On Dec 30 15:54 Richard wrote (shortened):
When YAST Control Center opens ... Scanner configuration window opens with first line reading "Not Configured" under Driver, and under Scanner, the line: "USB Scanner (vendor=0x041e, product=0x401c) at libusb:002:002".
The vendor ID is strange. If you have an "Epson" scanner, the vendor ID should be 0x04b8 (see below). I don't know which vendor 0x041e is.
I interpreted this to mean that YAST found a USB scanner that it could identify by maker and model and location ... I understood the phrase "Not Configured" to mean that it could still not be used yet, even though it was found.
Exactly. The reason is that any USB device can be identified on the USB (there are USB strandards which are used to do this), but this does neither mean that there exists a suitable driver for this device nor does it mean that even if there exists a suitable driver, the driver can be automatically activated.
Descending through the list of models I located the line "Epson Stylus Photo RX600 (which seemed hauntingly reminiscent of both the model I purchased and the label on the front of the model) : Driver epkowa (package iscan) provides complete functionality.
This shows one example why USB device detection neither means that there exists a suitable driver for this device nor that a suitable driver can be automatically activated. The "Epson Stylus Photo RX600" may be internally different than your scanner so that the RX600 driver may not work at all for your scanner.
... presented with a dialogue box stating, "Possibly Problematic Driver The epkowa driver may cause problems on 64-bit architectures.
Do you have a 64-bit architecture (e.g. an AMD 64-bit CPU)? If yes, see http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2005/03/jsmeix_scanner-setup-93.html http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2005/09/jsmeix_scanner-setup-100.html
... continues with the window "Setting up the driver Epkowa " which shows all six steps checked, the progress bar completely filled and displaying "100%".
This shows that "Setting up the driver Epkowa" was successful. This does neither mean that this driver will work for your scanner nor does it mean that it will actually work even for a RX600 - the usual example for this case are problems in the USB system - see http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/10/jsmeix_scanner-setup-92.html which other layers have to work so that an activated driver will actually work.
... returning to the "Scanner Configuration" window ... no change to the line indicating Not configured under Driver. However, a second line appears now: under Driver, "epkowa", and under scanner, "No active scanner for this driver".
This shows exactly what actually had happened on your system. The driver "epkowa" was successfully activated but this driver cannot find your scanner and therefore your scanner is still not ready to be used. If the driver cannot find your scanner, it is normally useless to try any normal scanning frontend like scanimage, xscanimage, xsane or kooka - except you use the epkowa driver on a 64-bit architecture, see http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2005/03/jsmeix_scanner-setup-93.html
Output of /usr/sbin/lsusb (suggested in YAST) does not list the scanner by name
Don't care too much about the USB model name strings. Those depend on what the manufacturer has built-in into the model. Sometimes the built-in model name strings are more or less meaningless like "Epson scanner". Therefore the crucial information is the hexadecimal USB manufacturer and model IDs (something like vendor=0x041e, product=0x401c). If your scanner is really compatible with the RX600 (or with any other model which works with the epkowa driver), it should be sufficient to explicitely tell the epkowa driver that it should recognize your scannre's USB IDs. See http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/10/jsmeix_scanner-setup-92.html "SANE Backends" ------------------------------------------------------------------- Normally, a backend automatically detects the USB scanners it supports. If this does not happen, it should be possible to add a line such as the following in /etc/sane.d/backend.conf: usb 0xVVVV 0xMMMM Based on the output of "lsusb", enter the hexadecimal vendor ID for 0xVVVV and the hexadecimal model ID for 0xMMMM. For certain backends the syntax "usb 0xVVVV 0xMMMM" may be different or not available at all, see the man page for the respective backend. ------------------------------------------------------------------- See "man sane-epkowa" and in particular see /etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf ------------------------------------------------------------------- # For any USB scanner not known to the backend (yet), you may, # at your own peril(!!), force the backend to recognise and use # it via libusb. # You can do so by the following configuration command: # # usb <USB vendor ID> <USB product ID> # # SEIKO EPSON's USB vendor ID is '0x04b8' (without quotes). ------------------------------------------------------------------- Note the "at your own peril(!!)" above! According to http://www.sane-project.org/cgi-bin/driver.pl?manu=epson&model=620&bus=any the RX620 works with the epkowa driver since version 1.1.17. On the Suse Linux 10.0 CDs there is version 1.1.15. If the above entry in /etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf doesn't work, you would neeed the iscan (or iscan-free) package version 1.1.17, see http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2005/09/jsmeix_scanner-setup-100.html and ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/jsmeix/unsupported/iscan/10.0/RPMS/ Note the "unsupported" and read the README in the directory.
While I appreciate what I suspect is a genuine desire to help, frankly I did not ask for it and I was a little dismayed by the seeming tone of irritation on your part.
My reply was not meant harsh. But it is always short and straightforward. I think it is the typical German way of communication ;-) I sift through a few hundred mails each day (regardless that I use additionally automated mail scanning "procmail" rules) and therefore I must answer either straightforward or I would have to unsubscribe from some mailing-lists. Because of this I often do not follow a whole mail thread but when I pick up a mail which is interesting for me, I answer this one mail. I hope the difference in my answer has become obvious depending on how much hard facts are provided in a mail. Kind Regards Johannes Meixner -- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5 Mail: jsmeix@suse.de 90409 Nuernberg, Germany WWW: http://www.suse.de/