USB scanner recommendation?
J.B. Nicholson-Owens
jbn at forestfield.org
Mon Feb 16 22:08:06 UTC 2004
Mitch Wiedemann wrote:
> I'm in the market for a new USB scanner. Of course I'd like it to be
> easy to set up and to work flawlessly with FC1, Gimp, Sane, etc. Can
> anyone give me a recommendation about current models on the market?
Epson Perfection 1260 (with or without the slide adaptor, which is just a
box that sits on top of the scanner glass when you scan slides). The
scanner was plug-and-play, none of Epson's software and no non-free software
drivers are needed. Simply plug in the power, the USB cable, and run xsane
or the GIMP (of course, you'll want the xsane-gimp package installed to use
the scanner from within the GIMP).
A new Epson Perfection 1260 scanner should cost you around US$70 mail-order
online (more in stores). A used refurbished one goes for about US$30. The
35mm slide adapter unit costs about US$40. Check http://www.pricewatch.com/
and http://froogle.google.com/ for prices and online stores.
The only catch is to make sure you have version 1.0.10 or greater of the
sane and version 0.45-5 or higher of the sane-backends. This is not a
problem for FC1, as FC1 ships with a more recent version of all the
necessary software. But it was an issue for RH9 and earlier users. See
http://www.gjaeger.de/scanner/plustek.html#epson for more information. I
mention this in case you upgraded from RH8 or RH9 and somehow did not
upgrade the sane software packages.
Happy scanning.
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