[sane-devel] Epson Perfection 3170 PHOTO and Linux (with iscan)

[Raphael Langerhorst]

Hi all,

I have an Epson Perfection 3170 PHOTO scanner, but I fail to get it to 
work with iscan (provided by epkowa). I installed the iscan source 
package on a ROCK Linux 2.0 (http://www.rocklinux.org). Today I 
installed kubuntu to serve as another base for iscan, but there are a 
couple of development packages missing, and I am really(!!) tired of 
doing anything more. I have the scanner for half a year now without 
being able to use it. I usually don't even use Linux (I use NetBSD 
and FreeBSD basically) and it's just frustrating that Epkowa provides 
a driver, but it doesn't work...

So if anyone knows the setup procedure (including which Linux 
Distribution, I use a spare PC for that) for an Epson Perfection 3170 
PHOTO scanner, let me know. And no, Windows is not an option (I'm 
tired of that as well).

Status:

With 2.4 kernel, inserting the scanner module with the vendor and 
product parameters works - sane-find-scanner detects the scanner as 
an Epson flatbed scanner, Kooka can select the scanner, but can't use 
it (clicking on preview or scan silently fails). If I start iscan it 
tells me that it can't send commands to the scanner (scanner is 
appararently turned on and connected, as reported by 
sane-find-scanner). I adapted the epkowa.conf (or maybe epson.conf) 
file to list the "usb /dev/usb/scanner0" entry. I basically followed 
the install instructions provided by Epkowa (for iscan 1.14).

There are some non-free firmware binaries included with iscan, is 
there anything I need to do with these? I know that the Epson 3170 
needs one of these, but it's nowhere written HOW to use them, so I 
guess iscan does it all by itself(?).

Please, if ANYONE out there actually uses this scanner and/or knows 
how to install it, let me know (there must be someone that made the 
"supported" entry on the sane website, which made me buy the product 
in the first place - I didn't see it's a binary external driver, 
which makes it USELESS for *BSD and AMD64 (= all non i386), which is 
stupid anyway).

THANKS,
-- 
Raphael Langerhorst
http://raphael.g-system.at/blog