[ale] Scanners

[Geoffrey]

Jim wrote:
> My old scanner has croaked.  It's a Mustek 600 III EP Plus.  Why you'd 
> care, I don't know. :)  It's one of the parallel printer models.  It 
> just isn't there any longer.  The software doesn't find it, Linux nor 
> Windows so I need to get a new scanner, however it looks like the Linux 
> drivers for scanners trail the market.  I can't find a current 
> production scanner that Linux supports.
> 
> Has anyone purchased a scanner recently that has a Linux driver 
> available?  I'd sure like to not have to use Windows, besides I suspect
> the new scanners won't have drivers for Win98SE, which is the only thing 
> I've got, if you don't count my laptop.  :)

I picked up an Epson 4990 pro recently, use it exclusively with Linux. 
Very nice.  Supported out of the box by SuSE 9.3 and up.  You didn't 
mention a price range, but this one is around $600.  You will want to 
look at the standard 4990 as the only difference between the two is 
extra windows software and $450 price tag for the standard 4990.  I got 
the pro before I knew the standard one was out there. :(  Here's are the 
  links if you want to check out the epson website:

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=49164280
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=49164281

I had originally picked up the 4490, but found out later that it is not 
currently supported on Linux (inspite of the fact I found documentation 
indicating that it was).  Note the difference in the model #s, it's 
close, so don't get the wrong one.  The 4490 is around $250.

What distro do you plan to use it with?  I've got a couple running here 
and could connect it to a different box to give you the warm and fuzzy 
if you'd like.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey