Important Information (4/19/08)
I am no longer maintaining the SANE EPSON backend. All the files on this web site are just for historical reasons, don't use them. They are old and completely out of date, just use whatever came with your Linux distribution, or with the latest version of Sane.
Important Information (8/15/03)
Now that I have power again ... Tad Prus-Wisniowski has created a page with information he has gathered from his Perfection 1670. So if you want to investigate this scanner, look at log files, ... it's all at http://server2.clover.com.au/~tpw/scanner/main.html.
Important Information (8/13/03)
The new EPSON Perfection 3170 will also not be supported by the EPSON backend. The completely new name suggests that it's different from the other scanners, so I have no idea if the Plustek backend will be able to support this scanner.
The new EPSON Perfection 1670 is not and will not be supported by the EPSON backend. It seems to be based on a similar design as the Perfection 1260, even though the name suggests that it is similar to the Perfection 1660. I have not seen this scanner myself, so I don't know if it will work with the Plustek backend or not.
Some Background Information
Perfection 660
Oliver Schwarz just announced on the sane-devel mailing list that the Perfection 660 is supported by the SnapScan backend. More information about the SnapScan backend is available from http://snapscan.sourceforge.net.
EPSON Kowa ImageScan!
EPSON Kowa is distributing the IScan! system again. See their announcement at http://www.epkowa.co.jp/english/linux_e/linux.html Big kudos to them for working on their GPL problems.
Perfection 1250/1260
The new EPSON Perfection 1250/1260 is not and will very likely not be supported by this SANE backend. The other new EPSON scanners (Perfection 1650/1660 and 2400/2450) are a different story: These scanners are fully supported.
But here is some good news:
The Plustek backen works with the Perfection 1250. Please see Gerhard Jaeger's site for more information.
The HP Scanjet 2200c backend also works with the Perfection 1250. Please check out it's page at http://scanjet2200c.sourceforge.net/.
EPSON Kowa Frontend for EPSON Scanners
Did you ever wonder why e.g. negative scanning is much easier with EPSON's Windows or Mac driver? Wonder no more... EPSON Kowa just released a Sane frontend that uses the same routines as the Windows drivers to scan images. Most parts of the driver are released under the GPL, it does however link in a binary library, which is fine with me. Give it a try at http://www.epkowa.co.jp/english/index_e.html. The latest version of this software also supports the Perfection 1250/1260.
The EPSON Backend
This is the home of the EPSON Sane backend, which is part of the standard SANE distribution. SANE is the software that lets you access a scanner under Linux or other Unix systems.
- The latest EPSON backend news
- The download page
- The SuSE 7.1 HowTo page
- Information about the USB interface
- Information about the IEEE-1394 (FireWire) interface
- The list of supported scanners
- A patch for the GT-8000 SCSI scanner
- Frequently Asked Questions - and answers
- Some user contributed tips
- Some color managment links
- The history of this backend
Here are some external links to SANE related sites:
- The official SANE page has information about SANE, the latest software, a mailing-list (with archive), developer information and more.
- For everything not explained on the SANE site there is always the SANE FAQ.
- And another FAQ with step-by-step instructions about how to get Sane-1.0.4 installed and configured.
- Here are some SANE frontends:
- The GOCR package, which of course does OCR (optical character recognition)
- A Solaris 8 USB driver for EPSON scanners
- A SICOT Telediagnostic is using SANE and EPSON Expression 1680 scanners to transmit mediacal data from remote locations.
