[sane-devel] Re: RE: Epson 1650 USB SUSE 7.3

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 10 September 2002 07:03, khk at khk.net wrote:
>>> I'm about ready to give up on this approach, and simply expect
>>> that if I want to use my scanner, I'll have to do it from
>>> Window$. This sane stuff is driving me IN-sane.
>>
>> If it's that bad, consider upgrading to SuSE 8.0. This scanner
>> gave me one of the best hardware experiences ever: plug in and
>> go. (This device-ID problem was not an issue, but I am in New
>> Zealand, perhaps the scanners sold here are a little different?)
>
>No, AFAIK EPSON is selling only one hardware configuration. They
> did have two or three in the past (Europe, Americas, Asia), but
> with all the recent models, they are only shipping one model with
> one version of the firmware. But it's certainly possible that
> they shipped different firmware versions over time.
>
>> Linux-USB has a somewhat bad reputation, I have trouble with my
>> USB printer locking up 90% through a 3EUR-ink-job. Buggy USB
>> software. It is entirely possible that the newer kernel of 8.0
>> has better USB support. You could just install the 8.0 kernel if
>> you don't want to upgrade the whole way, it's 1 wget and 1 rpm
>> -Uvh. Beats using M$ for scanning...
>
>I have two EPSON printers, one is connected via USB and works
> great, the other one is connected via the parallel port because
> USB always killed the job after about half a page ... I have not
> tested this with the SuSE 8.0 and USB, as long as I have a
> parport I don't intend to change this.
>
>One more thing you may want to look at is upgrading Sane. I don't
> remember which version was shipped with SuSE 7.3, but it's
> possible that a newer version has better support for the
> Perfection 1650.
>
>> Can you test that scanner with a different USB cable on a
>> different Linux box, to exclude hardware issues?
>
>Also, if your scanner is connected via a USB hub, take out the hub
> and connect it directly to the computer.
>
>Karl Heinz

Just a few comments here Karl.  After I had purchased an Epson 
1250u, I had it attached to the usb port of an older tyan S-1590 
mobo.  This mobo runs a mouse just fine.  But any attempt to 
actually do a scan from the scanner got me a hardware lockup so 
tight the reset button on the case was the only way out.  
Repeatable, usually after about 4k of data had actually been read.

I moved the scanner to a biostar M7VIB board after I had built that 
machine and found that it was working very well just by copying the 
sane src trees to the new machine and recompiling.  Exact same 
kernel srcs on each machine, one compiled for 585, one compiled for 
athlon.

I've since attached my new 820 printer to both machines, failing 
again when attached to the tyan mobo.

I'm convinced that older via chipsets are buggier than a 10 day old 
carcass in August. (northern hemisphere of course).  Thats not 
saying that there haven't been fixes in the linux kernel usb 
handling because there have been, but that in some cases, only a 
mobo change is going to really fix a usb scanner problem.

In re printer speed.  This 820 has both ports.  Its at least 4x 
faster on the usb port compared to the parallel.  The difference 
isn't just obvious, its really attention getting although I must 
admit I didn't stop watch it since a full page in hires color 
should be timed with an hour-glass when its on the parallel port.
On the usb, you've barely got time to go get a glass of tea and a 
ham sandwich out of the fridge.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III at 500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP at 1400mhz  512M
99.14% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly