Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

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Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby Weatherlawyer » Feb 6th, '15, 15:59

It just occurred to me after posting to this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8826&p=54336#p54336

That what I should have asked is what peripheral hardware do "the boys from the back room" at Mageia Central use for their printing and scanning needs?
And then I realised: "These are engineers; they probably use whatever the hell they want."

So here is my question:
I gave someone in their 80's an old computer I don't recall the make of, who has a laptop with XP on it that for some reason has slowed to a crawl and won't update AVG. I recently put Mageia 4.1 on the old box I gave him and he is delighted. I know the scanner/printer is an HP something or other, probably as old as the laptop but I don't know what variety it is.

So what scanner should I be looking for as a general purpose machine for them?
If that isn't a straight-forwards question, I am sorry I can't do better until I go around to his house next week. Surely there must be a consensus of what works and what doesn't. Looking through the threads I could see to steer clear of anything with the word Epson on it. Any refinements to that would be an help. In fact I have a suggestion:

Is there any way I can call up a list of what hardware to get when I get a download of Mageia next time?
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby doktor5000 » Feb 6th, '15, 20:20

Weatherlawyer wrote:Is there any way I can call up a list of what hardware to get when I get a download of Mageia next time?

Sadly there's no central database for all sorts of different hardware.
For printers there's openprinting http://www.openprinting.org/printers
And for scanners there http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html

For other hardware there are other sources of information available.

Wireless: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers
DVB devices and other stuff related to video/TV: http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/H ... nformation
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby Plisgyn » Feb 6th, '15, 21:44

I have an Epson Perfection V370 Photo running on Mageia 4 with XSane
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby Weatherlawyer » Feb 7th, '15, 01:29

Plisgyn wrote:I have an Epson Perfection V370 Photo running on Mageia 4 with XSane


Should that be ex-sane and would you have bought it had you read the stuff on here first?
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby doktor5000 » Feb 7th, '15, 12:56

Weatherlawyer wrote:
Plisgyn wrote:I have an Epson Perfection V370 Photo running on Mageia 4 with XSane

Should that be ex-sane


No, that's a scanner program http://www.xsane.org/ using SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) which I've linked to above http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby Weatherlawyer » Feb 7th, '15, 13:32

doktor5000 wrote:
Weatherlawyer wrote:
Plisgyn wrote:I have an Epson Perfection V370 Photo running on Mageia 4 with XSane

Should that be ex-sane


No, that's a scanner program http://www.xsane.org/ using SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) which I've linked to above http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html


My reply was a play of the difficulties experienced with running Epsons on Linux. To be honest, my experience with them is based on the malware they produce for Windows. If you are silly enough to put their help disc in you can kiss goodbye to operability unless you actually know how to use the damn thing. And then you are saddled with what they want you to see every time you try to log in. I can't remember if it was a search bar or what. Maybe a "you are not educated enough to find it, Luser" bar?
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby MadmanRB » Feb 16th, '15, 02:55

HP is pretty much it for compatibility with linux no other company really does any drivers sure cannons gotten a little bit better as has Lexmark but forget about Epson and other various printers
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby Weatherlawyer » Feb 16th, '15, 10:54

MadmanRB wrote:HP is pretty much it for compatibility with linux no other company really does any drivers sure cannons gotten a little bit better as has Lexmark but forget about Epson and other various printers


Thanks. At least HP has a good reputation. Or did. Off to Amazon it is, then.
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby MadmanRB » Feb 16th, '15, 11:03

If not HP my second choice is actually cannon, their compatibility has gone up over the last few years.
Cannon followed by Lexmark, maybe Samsung but Epson is dead last as they dropped the ball for linux support
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby Weatherlawyer » Feb 16th, '15, 13:29

I never liked Epson ever since my Windows days. My experience with them is that they supply software that is best described as malware. I had to do a system repair to clear it but a system reinstall to get rid of their shortcuts or whatever it was that kept showing up. Time heals all wounds but...

I suppose that had a more sense I would have just trusted Microsoft to have the applications covered.
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby doktor5000 » Feb 16th, '15, 18:48

MadmanRB wrote:Epson is dead last as they dropped the ball for linux support

Where did you get that? Actually they moved the support from Avasys who provided pretty good support and drivers to their own download center:
http://download.ebz.epson.net/dsc/searc ... ch/?OSC=LX
They also provide linux scanner drivers and their own scanning software, see https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Epson_scanners
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Re: Finding a scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby jkerr82508 » Feb 16th, '15, 20:39

I have used a variety of Epson printers and scanners over the years. For me the proprietary linux drivers provided by Epson (or Avasys) have always worked perfectly. It is important to follow carefully the installation instructions. It is necessary to check that linux drivers are available before making a purchase. Some Epson devices are not supported.

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closed (many tthanks to all) Scanner suited best to Mageia

Postby Weatherlawyer » Feb 17th, '15, 15:44

doktor5000 wrote: (Epson) moved the support from Avasys who provided pretty good support and drivers to their own download center:
http://download.ebz.epson.net/dsc/searc ... ch/?OSC=LX
They also provide linux scanner drivers and their own scanning software, see https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Epson_scanners


I thought that rather good of them. Until I read this:
In the small dialogue proposed by the Epson site, specify "core package&data package" as module name for obtaining the first 2 packages, "iscan plugin package" for the plugin module...
The iscan package fetched from the EPSON site replaces programs provided by the standard Mageia packages - therefore, you must first un-install the package sane-backends-iscan and, only then, install the new packages just fetched from the Epson site.


This reminded me of the bad old days with Microsoft, most of which I appreciate were my own ignorant faults. IN previous carnations I was silly enough to load all that marvellous garbage they helped me with. I not realising a lot of it was connected to the don't use all your ink codes and the like, I ended up with lots of malware. I am not a computer buff so I can only tell you that I didn't enjoy having an Epson; without being able to explain further.

This is turning into an unadvert for a scanner, all I wanted was advice on the scanners that the experts think are the most fitting for Mageia. My apologies to Epson and Epson old salts etcetera etcetera.
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