[Solved] - Impressions - All Linux household after 3 weeks.

[essjam]

As stated previously, one of the items that was not working on Linux Mint was my scanner. I have finally got the scanner working, but it is not a clean Linux environment any more. I tried everything I could think of and followed the excellent examples from above plus various sources on the internet. My Epson Perfection V550 machine remained obstinate for Linux.

I have adopted a work-around, and I do have the scanner working again. The solution was to install Virtualbox with a Windows7 guest OS. There is an excellent video on YouTube by Christopher Barnatt (ExplainingComputers) that gives a concise explanation of installing VBox, adding a GuestOS, creating a shared folder between the Host and Guest OS and most importantly accessing USB devices in the Guest OS. His video is for Windows 10, I used Windows 7 without problems. This link is to his video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWmD8ob ... dex=2&t=0s

I regret having to resort to using the W7 OS, but I am only using it for scanning. I do not access the internet from that session so I should be relatively safe from virus and malware incursions. My scanning workflow is to open the W7 OS, scan my files and save them to the shared W7/Linux folder. Once the scanning is complete the W7 OS is closed. The post processing of images is then performed on the Linux side. Seems to be working so far.

Many thanks to all that provided links and assistance to get my scanner working on the Linux side.

[Minux1]

I’m politically correct in that I’m cyber-inclusive.
I run Mac, Windows and Linux computers.
They all have their uses.
Anything requiring security (credit card purchases, turbotax, banking) is of course on the machines running the Unix derivative O/Ss (Linux, OSX).
Have 2 laptops that I upgraded from the incumbent win7 to win10 after w7s EOL which is a free process.
Don’t know where people get the idea that they have to pay money to follow the upgrade path from w7 to w10??? Maybe if their copy of w7 was pirated.
Mine were legit.
Didn’t cost me a cent and I don’t have shares in Microsoft stock.

[RollyShed]

As stated previously, one of the items that was not working on Linux Mint was my scanner. I have finally got the scanner working,

Apparently it is where sane files went to, where they are loaded to. I have the same problem and reverted to Mint 18 at the Shed and 18 is the version that handles sane and XSane correctly. The scanner now works and hopefully someone will sort out Mint 19 one day.

Having a number of computers available, the latest and fastest with Mint 19 won't run the scanner so a simple disk swap from one of the slower and "to be reassigned" computers (meaning we'll chuck them or give them away).

[essjam]

Don’t know where people get the idea that they have to pay money to follow the upgrade path from w7 to w10??? Maybe if their copy of w7 was pirated.
Mine were legit.

Did you mean to imply that my w7 installation was pirated? I hope not. My copy of W7 Pro is legit. I used the following command to create my ISO file for VirtualBox. This was from an Windows 7 Pro installation disk I purchased in 2015 for a custom PC build.
sudo dd if=/dev/sr0 of=/home/scott/My_W7_Pro_ISO/W7_Pro_Image.iso
My point in moving everything to Linux was that I was tired of the Microsoft stack and all its vulnerabilities. Yes, I was aware that I could move to W10 for a free upgrade. That wasn't going to happen, I disliked that OS from the first time I saw it years ago. Mac was not considered because of the requisite new hardware costs. So Linux and the Open Source environment became the logical choice to migrate my existing hardware into as a solution for W7 EOL.

[essjam]

As stated previously, one of the items that was not working on Linux Mint was my scanner. I have finally got the scanner working,

Apparently it is where sane files went to, where they are loaded to. I have the same problem and reverted to Mint 18 at the Shed and 18 is the version that handles sane and XSane correctly. The scanner now works and hopefully someone will sort out Mint 19 one day.

Having a number of computers available, the latest and fastest with Mint 19 won't run the scanner so a simple disk swap from one of the slower and "to be reassigned" computers (meaning we'll chuck them or give them away).

I finally gave up trying to fix my scanner after using strace and ltrace to get info on the missing dependencies. Holy smoke it was a mess, the trace files were several thousand lines long. I gave up as it was easier to go to VBox.

[RollyShed]

This is a small bit of what I found -

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1728012

Starting with Ubuntu 17.10, Ubuntu changed the directory where sane dll looks for third party drivers. This configuration effectively broke backward compatibility for all existing third-party drivers.

[Minux1]

I think the first prototype GUI I used was the old MS DOS v6.22 DOS-SHELL then 3.1, 95, 98, ME(terrible O/S), W2K, XP(the best), never used VISTA, 7(2nd best), 10.
Windows still has its uses and for some things it is indispensable.
I keep 1 or 2 Windows computers kicking around.
I wouldn’t keep any information on a Windows computer that I wouldn’t post on a public bulletin board in a shopping mall.
Mostly for games.

[BG405]

Ubuntu changed the directory where sane dll looks for third party drivers

That seems like a less than sane decision to me. I wonder what prompted or supposedly justified that change? In any case, this (your post and link) is useful as it would likely have tripped me up when setting up my next Mint installation. These changes evidently don't apply to non-Ubuntu distros such as Arch-base but I'll confirm when I get back and plug in my scanner to test as I've done quite a number of system upgrades since I last used the scanner.

I wouldn’t keep any information on a Windows computer that I wouldn’t post on a public bulletin board in a shopping mall.

My thoughts too, considering the EULA which, as far as I understand, is in the same league as Google's.