hpoj-devel

Re: [hpoj-devel] PSC 500: Scanning problem

[<pa...@rc...>]

Hi, Alain.

Alain wrote:
>   But the real problem is with scanning.  I would really like to get it 
> going.  I have downloaded SANE 1.0.4 and followed the instructions in the 
> SCAN-HOWTO file.  One thing that puzzles me is that the SANE docs seems to 
> mention exclusively SCSI interfaces, which I obviously don't have.
SANE tends to have a slight bias towards SCSI, since most of the scanners it
supports use SCSI.  However, there are several other connection methods
supported for specific backends, such as HP.

> The err 
> msg I get is this:
> 
> # scanimage --test
> scanimage: no SANE devices found   
> 
> So, why is there no SANE device recognized by the system?
There are a couple of things we can check here.  First of all,
when building SANE, check the output of ./configure to make sure it found
PTAL (step 7 in SCAN-HOWTO).  Also, make sure you edited
/usr/local/etc/sane.d/hp.conf so it contains the following two lines
(step 13):
	mlc:mlcpp0
	option connect-ptal

Also, make sure you didn't already have SANE installed, because Mandrake
includes RPMs for SANE.  Issue the command "rpm -qa|grep -i sane".

I hope this helps.

David

Re: [hpoj-devel] PSC 500: Scanning problem

[<mal...@t-...>]

Hello David,

> Also, make sure you didn't already have SANE installed, because Mandrake
> includes RPMs for SANE.  Issue the command "rpm -qa|grep -i sane".

This was it.  The other points were OK.  I really haven't thought about a 
previous (in this case default) installation of a previous version.  Now it 
scans all right but since I'm new to scanning I was first amazed at the size 
of some 100 Mbytes of a sampled page of regular format, color mode at 600 dpi.

Isn't there an interrupt on the parallel port to minimize the load on the 
operating system of transfered data while scanning?  It would be nice to have 
the GUI still flowing nicely while doing 600 dpi scans.

It would also be nice to specify a page size while scanning.  For instance, 
if there's only one 5 x 7 picture in the scanner the scan could stop at x 
inches and then close the file appropriately.

I know I still have a lot to learn about printing with Linux.  The printing 
system is not entirely clear for me.  I think CUPS looks quite OK to use.

Cheers, and thanks for the help,

Alain

Re: [hpoj-devel] PSC 500: Scanning problem

[<pa...@rc...>]

Alain wrote:
> This was it.  The other points were OK.  I really haven't thought about a 
> previous (in this case default) installation of a previous version.  Now it 
> scans all right but since I'm new to scanning I was first amazed at the size 
> of some 100 Mbytes of a sampled page of regular format, color mode at 600 dpi
600 dpi is overkill for most situations.  From what I've heard, 150 dpi is
sufficient for photos, and less is fine for text, but your mileage may vary.

> Isn't there an interrupt on the parallel port to minimize the load on the 
> operating system of transfered data while scanning?  It would be nice to have
> the GUI still flowing nicely while doing 600 dpi scans.
There is a varying degree of interrupt support between parallel ports, but
it isn't helpful for the ways we're using the parallel port.

> It would also be nice to specify a page size while scanning.  For instance, 
> if there's only one 5 x 7 picture in the scanner the scan could stop at x 
> inches and then close the file appropriately.
With both xscanimage and xsane you can set "geometry" options to set the
top-left and bottom-right corners of the scan window.  If you drag the mouse
within the preview window it will draw a rectangle which sets the geometry,
although there are a few bugs with this method in xscanimage.

> I know I still have a lot to learn about printing with Linux.  The printing 
> system is not entirely clear for me.  I think CUPS looks quite OK to use.
I'm not familar with CUPS, so I would be interested to hear how it works
out for you in conjunction with the hpoj package.

David