Ok, tell me what you downloaded the sane-backends-1.0.9.tar.gz with? If it was IE then you most likely have a corrupted download.

Twas Galeon

Ok, How did you untar the archive?

I opened it with Konqueor (showing hidden files) and copied and pasted to a directory named /usr/src/sane-backends-1.0.9.

Aha!
Try doing it this way, copy the archive to /usr/src and untar it with "tar -xzf sane-backends-1.0.9.tar.gz".

Hi

I have done that - and the "sane-backends-1.0.9.tar.gz" install appears to have gone OK. Now "sane-find-scanner" finds the scanner, but "scanimage -L" can not find it. I have tried installing "plustek_sane-0_44_10.tar.gz" (to include support for the CanoScan N650u) but this does not seem to be successful. Looking at "/usr/local/etc/sane.d" the N630u is listed, but there is no reference to N650u.

Thats because the N650u uses the plustek.conf file, not the cannon630u.conf file. You'll need to open /usr/local/etc/sane.d/plustek.conf and edit it for a usb scanner.

Hi Aussie

I modified /usr/local/etc/sane.d/plustek.conf and looks like this:

# For parport devices use the parport section
#[parport]
#device /dev/pt_drv
# leave the default values as specified in /etc/modules.conf
# option warmup -1
# option lOffOnEnd -1
# option lampOff -1
#
# The USB section:
# each device needs at least two lines:
# - [usb] vendor-ID and product-ID
# - device devicename
# - CanoScan N650u
[usb] 0x04a9 0x2206
device /dev/usb/scanner

Again "sane-find-scanner" finds the scanner, but "scanimage -L" doesn't.

My "/etc/modules.conf" looks like this:

probeall scsi_hostadapter advansys ide-scsi
probeall usb-interface usb-uhci
above snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-slot-0 snd-emu10k1

alias char-major-40 pt_drv
pre-install pt_drv modprobe -k parport
options pt_drv lampoff=180 warmup=15 usb lOffonEnd=0 mov=0 slowIO=1

the last line does not look right ....

thanks for hanging in there!

Thats because it's set up for a parallel post scanner, you need to change it to use the correct usb modules.

How? (sorry)

By following the instructions, http://www.gjaeger.de/scanner/usb/Plustek-USB.txt

Aussie, this is worse than pulling teeth!!

adding "options scanner vendor=0x04a9 product=2206"to the end of /etc/modules.conf made no difference. And I still have to manually do "modprobe scanner vendor=0x04a9 product=2206" before "sane-find-scanner" can see the scanner.

When I removed the sane-1.0..8 rpm, I had to remove xsane and libsane. Searching for libsane.so.1 on RPMfind it lists "sane-backends-1.0.9-1.i386.rpm" (Which is not listed when searching for sane.) Is it safe to install the "sane-backends-1.0.9-1.i386.rpm" over the source install to get libsane, or do I throw the lot out the window?

libsane.so.1 is part of sane-backends so you'll have it installed already, try just doing "modprobe scanner" without the options and post the output of "lsmod".

Module Size Used by Not tainted
ppp_deflate 41024 0 (autoclean)
bsd_comp 4344 0 (autoclean)
scanner 9140 0
sg 31276 0 (autoclean)
lp 6720 0
parport_pc 21672 1
parport 23936 1 [lp parport_pc]
sr_mod 15096 0 (autoclean) (unused)
floppy 49340 0 (autoclean)
snd-seq-midi 3680 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-emu10k1-synth 4220 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-emux-synth 25532 0 (autoclean) [snd-emu10k1-synth]
snd-seq-midi-emul 4880 0 (autoclean) [snd-emux-synth]
snd-seq-virmidi 2888 0 (autoclean) [snd-emux-synth]
snd-seq-oss 26176 0 (unused)
snd-seq-midi-event 3208 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-virmidi snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 33264 2 [snd-seq-midi snd-emux-synth snd-seq-midi-emul snd-seq-virmidi snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-pcm-oss 36932 0
snd-mixer-oss 9016 1 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-emu10k1 56592 1 [snd-emu10k1-synth]
snd-pcm 55808 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-emu10k1]
snd-timer 9964 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm]
snd-util-mem 1280 0 [snd-emux-synth snd-emu10k1]
snd-rawmidi 12864 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-virmidi snd-emu10k1]
snd-seq-device 3836 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-emu10k1-synth snd-emux-synth snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-emu10k1 snd-rawmidi]
snd-ac97-codec 25508 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-hwdep 3840 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd 24804 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-emux-synth snd-seq-virmidi snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm snd-timer snd-util-mem snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd-ac97-codec snd-hwdep]
soundcore 3780 0 [snd]
ppp_async 7456 1
ppp_generic 20064 3 [ppp_deflate bsd_comp ppp_async]
slhc 5072 1 [ppp_generic]
af_packet 13000 0 (autoclean)
nls_iso8859-15 3356 1 (autoclean)
nls_cp850 3580 1 (autoclean)
vfat 9588 1 (autoclean)
fat 31864 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
supermount 14340 3 (autoclean)
ide-cd 28712 0
cdrom 26848 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
ide-scsi 8212 0
usb-uhci 21676 0 (unused)
usbcore 58304 1 [scanner usb-uhci]
rtc 6560 0 (autoclean)
sd_mod 11612 0 (unused)
advansys 85132 0 (unused)
scsi_mod 91140 5 [sg sr_mod ide-scsi sd_mod advansys]

Well that all looks ok, now install the latest version of Xsane and start it up.