This is what I did to set up my Epson Perfection 2400 Photo scanner under Linux.

1. Buy it
   I got mine as a gift, it was purchased at Costco.
   You can probably also find this scanner at:
   
   • BestBuy
   • CircuitCity
   • CompUSA
   • OfficeMax
   • Staples
   • ...and so on
2. Hook it up (pdf)
3. Prep the kernel
   • cd /usr/src/linux
   • make config/menuconfig/xconfig
   • Tell the kernel to build the scanner module:
     <M> USB Scanner support (CONFIG_USB_SCANNER=m)
   • make modules
   • make modules_install
   • If you use kernel 2.4.20 (maybe 2.4.21 too, I never tried) add this to /etc/modules.conf:
     

     # Epson Perfection 2400 Photo (0x4b8/0x11b)
     options scanner vendor=0x04b8 product=0x011b
     

     You can get the vendor and product IDs by looking at lsusb -v (look for the idVendor and idProduct lines) or by trying to load the module. The change to modules.conf doesn't appear to be necessary with kernel 2.4.22
   • Run depmod -a
4. modprobe scanner
5. Now run dmesg.
   You should see something in the dmesg output like this under kernel 2.4.20:
   

   usb.c: registered new driver usbscanner
   scanner.c: probe_scanner: User specified USB scanner -- Vendor:Product - 4b8:
   scanner.c: 0.4.6:USB Scanner Driver
   

   
   and this is what it looks like under kernel 2.4.25:
   

   usb.c: registered new driver usbscanner
   scanner.c: USB scanner device (0x04b8/0x011b) now attached to scanner0
   scanner.c: 0.4.16:USB Scanner Driver
   

6. Compile and install SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy)
   I put a howto for building and installing Sane and a few frontends here
7. Add this line to /usr/local/etc/sane.d/epson.conf:
   

   usb /dev/usb/scanner0
   

8. Uncomment the "epson" line in /usr/local/etc/sane.d/dll.conf
9. If your version of Slackware (>= 8.1 should) has a /etc/profile.d/ directory, create a /etc/profile.d/sane.sh script (chmod 755) that has this in it:

   #!/bin/sh
   export SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE=/dev/usb/scanner0
   

   If you don't have /etc/profile.d/, add that line to /etc/profile. Setting this environment variable tells scanimage and xscanimage what your scanner device is (without having to specify it on the commandline). If your (non-root) account is the only one that'll be using the scanner, you could also just throw that line in ~/.bash_login

Resources

• Epson
• Epson Support: Perfection 2400 Photo
• SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy)
• SANE Epson Backend
• XSane (a frontend)
• QuiteInsane (another frontend)
• GOCR (optical character recognition)

Last updated: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:29:22 -0400 Jason Englander <jason at englanders dot us>