Scanning

[wf54]

Although Mint's all singing and dancing there doesn't seem to be any effort going into Sane.
The reason I'm twisting is that I have to do any scanning on the wife's Win10 Laptop and after fifteen minutes it's still configuring updates
My scanner, an old Cannon Lide 100 still works well but Cannon have dropped support, although like many the support wasn't up to par for Linux.
There's Vuescan which works at a cost that's not really worth it for the odd scan, so I was just wondering why scanners are so problematic [according to the requests for help here and elsewhere] for Linux.
If Linux wishes to take a greater market share why ignore Sane? Microsoft certainly hasn't as it's still useful for scanning to email and such.

Twist over Win10 has now finished updating

[Moem]

This doesn't seem to be a question, but in case it helps... I use SimpleScan with my old Canoscan Lide 110 and it works just fine, out of the box.

[phd21]

Hi wf54,

I think Linux does really well with most scanners. It does help if there are native Linux drivers for the scanners.

+1 for "vuescan" which is a great scanning software application as well.

In the link below are instructions for installing the most current "sane" scanning packages and "gscan2pdf" application.

Simple scan in mint 19 - Linux Mint Forums
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=274108&hilit=gscan2pdf

restart computer after installing and updating these.

Hope this helps ...

[Portreve]

I have thought about getting another flatbed scanner myself. I had a few, many years ago, back when I was still professionally active in the print (i.e. desktop publishing) industry. It is insane how much they are selling for today, and that coupled with lack of a clear-cut answer to which hardware I should buy has halted any purchasing decision on my part.

A fallback option, I think, could be to get a relatively inexpensive all-in-one unit and use it exclusively in a stand-alone configuration, having it scan at the highest resolution possible to a flash drive, then taking the resultant image files and processing them separately. For example, scanning text and then performing OCR on the images after the fact.

At this point, where graphic image files are concerned, I only use one of two formats: PNG and SVG. I will have no truck with a proprietary file format, and besides, JPEG is garbage anyhow.

Don't get me wrong: if I could know specifically what hardware to buy and that hardware could be had for a reasonable price, I would get that instead because it's really cumbersome to do it the other way. Nevertheless, I want the cleanest solution possible, and will go without rather than cut corners.

[wf54]

This was just a general rant about how Sane seems to have been forgotten about..
I agree with phd21 in that Mint does quite well and my scanner does work with most of the software, in a fashion.
Up until the later versions of Mint 18 and now Mint 19 there wasn't a problem, just happens that Cannon stopped support for that version and from then on it went down hill.

Portreve's idea seem to be one only solution, the other I've found is Q4OS and Kooka which I've installed on a very old laptop.

As for Vuescan, $40 to remove the intrusive watermark which I wouldn't mind if it was permanently removed. However there's been reviews that's said once the years updates are finished the the watermark returns. Having emailed them about the watermark and as yet received no reply to confirm or deny, that's on hold. Then again it just shows that it's possible to have good scanning software on Linux. at a cost.

The problem, I believe anyway, lies firmly at the door of the manufacturers and their reluctance to give the same support to Linux as Windows, while still willing to take their money.
Since Win10 there's been a steady upsurge in the number of people sick to death of the forced updates and integrated apps. Notice that Microsoft don't issue figures on how many updates there are compared to sales, it may embarrass their HR department and give manufactures an idea of how many people are jumping the Microsoft ship.
Rant Over

[phd21]

Hi Portreve and wf54,

Obviously with any computer hardware for your Linux Mint systems, it is best to make sure they have current Linux drivers available. A lot of smart computer hardware manufacturers do provide updated Linux drivers for their hardware, but not all.

The problem, I believe anyway, lies firmly at the door of the manufacturers and their reluctance to give the same support to Linux as Windows

True

I have an HP Officejet 4110 which is a very old MFP (multi-function printer) with vertical sheet-feed scanner and fax and although the printer does not work well any more and I do not have any ink for it, its fax and scanner still work well. I did install the HP Linux drivers HPLIP-3.19.1 which include the printer, fax, and scanning drivers and software and they work great as usual.

I answer a lot of posts in this forum to help others and I have noticed that HP printers and MFP printers and their stand-alone scanners, etc... work by default usually in Linux Mint and they also have updated drivers. Most Epson hardware over the past few years like printers, MFP printers, and their scanners also have very good Linux drivers. Certain models of Canon and Brother printers, MFP printers, scanners, etc... also have Linux drivers and software. You just have to check first before getting one.

The link I posted before provides information on installing the most current "sane" scanning driver packages and the superb "gscan2pdf" application which can also do OCR. There are a few OCR packages in the "Synaptic Package Manager (SPM)".

I get fairly frequent updates for the scanning packages using the "sane" PPA.

Hope this helps ...

[lsemmens]

what's wrong with this? And this is only a "medium thumbnail" from the hosting site because Mint Forums would not cope with full resolution.

Scanned at 2400 to a JPG file using Simple Scan. Almost better than the original. HP cm1312 MFC. I cannot complain about the compressed format of JPG given that I have thousands of images like this.

[wf54]

Thanks phd21, I followed the instructions [sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rolfbensch/sane-git - sudo apt-get update - sudo apt install sane sane-utils unpaper libsane1 libsane-common - restart] and tried a couple of scans and it's working fine, I see how it goes from now on.
I had tried to update sane before with the 'sudo apt-get update' without any success, so I obviously did something wrong.
Although this just a twist and wasn't a plea for help as I'd actually given up, you assistance was very much appreciated.
You deserve a medal as big as a frying pan
Again many thanks

[phd21]

Hi wf54,

You are very welcome...

Glad your scanner is working for you now. What scanning app did you use? I really like that "gscan2pdf" application.

[wf54]

Sorry for late very late reply, must think I'm a right ignorant git.
I didn't notice your reply when last visited,
I've updated to 19.2 and starting off again setting up the scanner.
I was using Simple and gscan2pdf before the upgrade.
The only program that works again is Simple Scan, so I'm keep updating Sane until the other start working again.

When the scan first completed it's perfect then a couple of seconds later it's covered in grey blocks.

A work in progress:-)

Thanks again
Wilf