sane-project-website/old-archive/1998-08/0066.html

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<title>sane-devel: Microtek E3+ war story (The good guys win)</title>
<h1>Microtek E3+ war story (The good guys win)</h1>
<b>Dan Birchall</b> (<a href="mailto:djb@nospam.scream.org"><i>djb@nospam.scream.org</i></a>)<br>
<i>Fri, 14 Aug 1998 10:51:42 -0400</i>
<p>
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Hooboy.<br>
<p>
Those of you who've been playing along at home will probably<br>
remember that I decided quite recently to get my wife a scanner<br>
for our anniversary.  (And yes, it's really for her; she has <br>
clients that occasionally require lots of scanning.)  After<br>
reading up on SANE, I opted for a Microtek scanner, since the<br>
back-end appeared to be in a pretty stable beta state.  <br>
<p>
The Scanmaker E3 seemed to be a good inexpensive choice, but a<br>
friend who owns a chain of computer stores didn't have one, and<br>
I had no luck at the local stores either - CompUSA said they<br>
could special order it but it'd take 10-20 days; OfficeMax just<br>
plain doesn't carry Microtek, and Best Buy doesn't carry their<br>
SCSI models.  So I wound up ordering an E3+ from PC Connection.<br>
They said it'd take 2 days instead of the usual overnight <br>
delivery, since their warehouse was doing inventory... but it<br>
got there overnight. :)<br>
<p>
Wednesday I did all the hardware installation and hookup, and<br>
was able to use "modprobe" to get Linux to realize that the<br>
card was in there, but I couldn't get any further.  Now, this<br>
is a somewhat interesting computer - it started out with only<br>
200 megs of disk, so a full install of Linux was not an option.<br>
We've since added another 1.2 gigs, but I'm still installing<br>
new RPMs on an "as needed" basis.  And the kernel was stock.<br>
My friend Dave, who runs assorted flavors of Linux on all sorts<br>
of machines, volunteered to help me rebuild the kernel and get<br>
things set up.  I downloaded GCC, the kernel source, and all<br>
that good stuff.<br>
<p>
Thursday, Dave came over and we rebuilt the kernel... after I<br>
downloaded a few more little things, like *-devel library<br>
packages! :)  Suddenly, the computer knew that it not only<br>
had a SCSI card, but also a scanner!  Yay!  We built SANE, but<br>
I didn't see xscanimage.  Hmm.  I stayed up late, and deduced<br>
that I was missing some GTK libraries, so I got all the latest<br>
GTK stuff, and built it again.  That was more like it.  I ran<br>
xscanimage from the command line, and it worked like a charm.<br>
I copied it into the GIMP plug-ins directory, started GIMP,<br>
and it didn't show up.  Further poking around resulted in the<br>
realization that I was missing the GIMP development libraries,<br>
so I got them, rebuilt SANE yet another time, and finally<br>
GIMP recognized xscanimage as a plug-in, as seen on TV. :)<br>
<p>
So yes, it works.  And quite honestly, for someone who *has*<br>
a reasonably complete Linux installation on their system, and<br>
has SCSI support in their kernel, this would be an incredibly<br>
easy install.  It took me several hours, but only because I<br>
had to install an RPM or three for *each* step of the install<br>
process. :)<br>
<p>
Interestingly enough, the E3+ might be a little bit different<br>
than the original E3.  It shuts its light off after about 10<br>
or 15 minutes of idle time (I seem to recall someone kvetching<br>
about the E3 not doing that).  And it apparently supports SCSI-2 -<br>
I commented out everything but "microtek" and "microtek2" in<br>
dll.conf, and it came up using "microtek2" much to my surprise.<br>
I'm going to try commenting out "microtek2" to see if it will<br>
use "microtek" instead, since "microtek2" is allegedly still<br>
alpha.<br>
<p>
But I can definitely say that it works, and for $180 including<br>
shipping, it seems like a pretty good choice.<br>
<p>
-Dan<br>
<p>
<pre>
-- 
Dan 'Shag' Birchall, Moorestown, New Jersey.  Spam delenda est.
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<p>
<pre>
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</pre>
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<p>
<ul>
<!-- next="start" -->
<li> <b>Next message:</b> <a href="0067.html">Frank Haase: "[Fwd: Canoscan 2700F and Sane-0.74]"</a>
<li> <b>Previous message:</b> <a href="0065.html">Rogier Wolff: "Re: Problem with Mustek Scanexpress 12000 SP"</a>
<!-- nextthread="start" -->
<li> <b>Next in thread:</b> <a href="0068.html">Matto Marjanovic: "Re: Microtek E3+ war story (The good guys win)"</a>
<li> <b>Reply:</b> <a href="0068.html">Matto Marjanovic: "Re: Microtek E3+ war story (The good guys win)"</a>
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</ul>