[sane-devel] SANE vs. Epson backends

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 05:47:28PM -0600, Michael J. Hammel wrote:
> Thus spoke Henning Meier-Geinitz
> > Then you didn't use the SANE backend, because the SANE epson backend
> > does not support that scanner. Unfortunaly, the backend made by Epson
> > is also called "epson".
> 
> Okay, now I'm confused here.  I have both SANE and iscan installed.  If I
> add the appropriate device to the epson.conf file, QuiteInsane and XSane
> find the scanner.  If I add it to plustek instead, neither finds the scanner.

As Henning already pinted out, the IScan backend is unfortunately also
named "epson", and therefore replaced the original EPSON backend. This means
that once you've installed IScan, you can no longer use the "real"
EPSON backend (which in your case is no problem because your scanner is
not supported by it). 

> 
> The scanner is an Epson Perfection 1260.
> 
> Does this mean that all my front ends are using the ImageScan backend then?

It depends on what you have enabled in dll.conf. You should be able to enable
both the (EPSON KOWA) epson and plustek entries. When the frontend comes up,
it will present a selection of all scanners it found. Your scanner should
be listed twice.

> 
> Is there a way to (at least temporarily) switch between the ImageScan backend
> and the official SANE Epson (re: Plustek) backend?  I need to do this in order

It's not the official SANE EPSN backend, it's the Plustek backend. The "official
SANE EPSON" backend is for most of the EPSON scanners (the ones that use the
ESC-I command language). 

> to do some comparisons for an article I'm writing.  I want to make sure I'm
> looking at the right thing for each frontend I review.  Is the SANE backend
> preferrable to the ImageScan backend?  If so, what are the reasons for the
> preference?

Even though I may sound like a broken record: The Perfection 1260 (like the
1250 and the 660 - which is only available in Europe) is not supported by
the EPSON backend. These scanners use the "scanner on a chip" design from
National Semiconductor (NS983x chips), this design is also used by other
manufacturers (e.g. Plustek).  All other EPSON scanners use EPSON's ESC-I
command language and are supported by the EPSON backend. EPSON KOWA used
the EPSON backend and added to it: The added an interpreter that takes
ESC-I commands and translates them to the NS983x commands. 

The Plustek backend does support the Perfection 1260 plus a number of other
non-Plustek scanners. 

So you have your choice of epson-kw (even though it's named just epson)
or plustek.

> 
> PS:
> I just noticed that libsane-epson.so is a symlink to libsane-epsonkw.so.1.0.6.
> Maybe if I just moved the libsane-epson* files out of /usr/lib/sane, that
> would force the front ends to use the plustek driver instead - yes? 

No, enable the "plustek" entry in dll.conf, if this still does not work,
you can disable the "epson" entry. 

Hope this helps,

Karl Heinz

-- 
Karl Heinz Kremer                                  khk at khk.net
PGP Key at                 http://www.khk.net/download/khk.asc
EPSON Sane Backend:                         http://www.khk.net
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