Quoting Andrew Greig ([email protected]):

> Thanks for that tip.  The dll.conf file had everything commented
> out, so all I had to do was lose the hash in front of the epson2
> entry.

Yeah, that would do it.  ;->

Glad you got to the bottom of that, though one wonders _what_ disabled
all SANE back-ends.

> By the way I downloaded a trial version of Vuescan, a proprietary
> scanning front end which runs on Linux. It must be small as it took
> around 20 seconds to download, and the whole thing was self
> contained. I stuck it in my Downloads folder. Last night, before I
> had done the dll.conf thing, running of the binary, it found the
> scanner and was ready to go with a very slick, clean interface in
> seconds. Scan quality was very good but trial scans are heavily
> watermarked, and issue the invitation to buy the full versions. A
> very nice piece of work.

Yes, Vuescan has an excellent reputation, and I've often recommended it
for users of scanners unsupported (or poorly supported) by SANE.  As
with other categories of proprietary drivers, Vuescan has the advantage
that its maintainer (Hamrick Software) can sign NDAs to get access to
secret manufacturer-confidential chipset information, instead of needing
to reverse-engineer that information or glean it from public
information, as open source coders are obliged to do.  So, inherently,
they have an information advantage in coding for the problem cases.
Additionally, they have a financial incentive to develop support even
for obscure hardware that open source coders would try _not_ to own and
have no compelling personal interest in supporting.

Personally, on the rare occasions when I end up with hardware with
really poor or nonexistent open source driver support, I interpret that
as an indicator of undesirable hardware, sell it, and get something
better.  Your Mileage May Differ.[tm]
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