EPSON prefection 4490 photo scanner

[Ron Morse]

On Saturday 17 March 2007 20:12:44 Denis Gaulin wrote:
> 	My problem is .. I have an EPSON scanner,  4490 perfection 4490 PHOTO that
> I use with my Mac IBOOK G4 and I want to switch to these new OS and I do
> not know how to install it on these computers because Kubuntu or UBUNTU do
> not recognize the scanner.
> 	The Kubuntu Documentation is  silent about scanner package.... nothing in
> the official Documentation.

This is you lucky day.  I just bought one of those units and worked out how to 
get it working on Kubuntu Edgy (also works for Feisty).   

The usual source for Linux scanner help and support is the SANE project at 

http://www.sane-project.org/ 

Unfortunately, the Perfection 4490 Photo is not directly supported by SANE. 
The good news is that Epkowa, the parent company for Epson in Japan, does 
provide a Linux driver and a limited control software application for this 
unit.  

step 1.  From the Ubuntu repositories for your version, Install sane and 
related packages (libsane, libsane-extras, sane, sane-utils, xsane, 
xsane-common, quiteinsane) All of these may not be strictly required, but I 
do not know which ones are and which are not. That is just a list of what I 
have installed. 

step 2. Connect and power up the scanner. Wait 60 seconds for the scanner to 
warm up -- this seems to be important as it won't report it's presence until 
it is ready.  

step3. make sure the scanner is detected. In a terminal window run:

sane-find-scanner

it should report :

    found USB scanner (vendor=0x04b8 [EPSON], product=0x0119 [EPSON Scanner]) 
at libusb:001:006

or, run (also from a terminal window)

scanimage -L

and it should report finding an Epson Perfection 4490 flatbed scanner 

The libsub address will probably be different depending on which port you have 
connected the scanner.  If sane-find-scanner or scanimage -L do not find a 
scanner at all, stop. You have to solve that problem first. 

step 4. Get the 4490 linux package from the Epkowa site: 

http://www.avasys.jp/english/linux_e/dl_scan.html

Answer their questionnaire. Select Perfection 4490 Photo. I told them I was 
using Debian and selected "other" in the version dialog. Clicking on 
the "next" button will take you to a download page 

step 5. The source code tarball will not build on Edgy or Feisty, so take the 
two .rpm files (you need both the iScan and the driver package) from the 
appropriate GCC version section for your distro. For Edgy or Feisty the GCC 
3.4 files work.  

step 6. If you haven't already done so, install alien from repository to 
convert the .rpm files to .deb. (sudo apt-get install alien). 

step 7. Convert the .rpm files.  In a terminal window change to the directory 
where the two downloaded driver files are located then: 

sudo alien iscan_2.5.0-0.c2.i386.rpm
sudo alien iscan-plugin-gt-x750_1.0.0-1.c2.i386.rpm

This should produce the two .deb packages:

iscan_2.5.0-0.c2.i386.deb
iscan-plugin-gt-x750_1.0.0-1.c2.i386.deb

Ignore any errors that you may see here. 

step 8. Install the two .deb packages from a terminal window with dpkg, doing 
the main iscan package first.

sudo dpkg i- scan_2.5.0-0.c2.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i iscan-plugin-gt-x750_1.0.0-1c2.i386.deb

Step 8a.

If the main iscan package will not install cleanly because it reports file 
conflicts with certain sane-related packages previously  installed, just go 
ahead and force dpkg to overwrite 

sudo dpkg i- --force-overwrite iscan_2.5.0-0.c2.i386.deb

The plugin should not have a conflict.

This completes the installation.  To test things out make sure the scanner is 
powered up and connected and then type 

iscan

from a terminal, It should start and identify the scanner.  Note the 4490 
takes awhile to warm up, so don't do thing too quickly and don't be surprised 
if things just sit there for a few moments before anything starts to happen.  

Once iscan is installed, the xsane and quiteinsane front-ends also should find 
and control the scanner. I prefer iScan to quiteinsane, but you can try them 
all and decide what best meets your needs. 

Ron Morse