Provided by: libsane-common_1.0.27-1~experimental3ubuntu2.4_all bug

NAME

       sane-mustek - SANE backend for Mustek SCSI flatbed scanners (and some other devices)

DESCRIPTION

       The  sane-mustek library implements a SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) backend that provides
       access to Mustek (and some relabeled Trust and Primax) SCSI and parport flatbed  scanners.
       At present, the following scanners are known to work more or less with this backend:

              Paragon MFS-6000CX
              Paragon MFS-12000CX
              Paragon MFC-600S, 600 II CD, ScanMagic 600 II SP
              Paragon MFC-800S, 800 II SP
              Paragon MFS-6000SP
              Paragon MFS-8000SP
              Paragon MFS-1200SP, MFS-12000SP
              ScanExpress 6000SP
              ScanExpress 12000SP, 12000SP Plus, Paragon 1200 III SP, ScanMagic 9636S, 9636S Plus
              Paragon 1200 LS
              ScanExpress A3 SP
              Paragon 1200 SP Pro
              Paragon 1200 A3 Pro
              Paragon 600 II EP
              Paragon 600 II N
              Trust Imagery 1200
              Trust Imagery 1200 SP
              Trust Imagery 4800 SP
              Trust SCSI Connect 19200
              Primax Compact 4800 SCSI

       More    details    can    be    found    on    the    Mustek    SCSI    backend   homepage
       http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/mustek-backend/.

       Don't mix up MFS (Paragon), Pro and  ScanExpress  models!  They're  completely  different.
       Check the exact model name!

       Note  that  most  of  the  above  scanners  come with a SCSI interface.  The only non-SCSI
       scanners that have some support at this point is the 600 II N and 600 II EP scanners.  The
       former  one  comes  with  its  own  parallel port adapter (i.e., it does not attach to the
       printer port). Both scanners use the SCSI protocol internally, too. More info  on  how  to
       use  these  parallel  port  scanners can be found below in section PARALLEL PORT SCANNERS.
       Other parallel port scanners are not supported by this backend but you may  be  successful
       using the Mustek parallel port backend mustek_pp, see sane-mustek_pp(5).  USB scanners are
       also not supported by this  backend  but  the  ma1509,  mustek_usb,  gt68xx,  and  plustek
       backends  include  support  for  some  of  them,  see  sane-ma1509(5), sane-mustek_usb(5),
       sane-gt68xx(5), and sane-plustek(5).

       Mustek scanners have no protection against exceeding the physical scan area height.   That
       is,  if a scan is attempted with a height that exceeds the height of the scan surface, the
       scanner begins making loud noises and the scan mechanism may be  damaged.   Thus,  if  you
       hear such a noise, IMMEDIATELY turn off the scanner. This shouldn't happen if your scanner
       is in the list of known scanners. There is more information in the @DOCDIR@/PROBLEMS file.

       If you own a Mustek (or Trust) scanner other than the ones listed above  that  works  with
       this  backend,  please  let us know by sending the scanner's exact model name (look at the
       front and back of the scanner) and a debug output  to  sane-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org.
       You  can  get  the debug output by setting the environment variable SANE_DEBUG_MUSTEK to 5
       and showing the list of available scanners with scanimage -L. Please send all of it to the
       mailing  list.  You must be subscribed to sane-devel before you can send mail to the list.
       See http://www.sane-project.org/mailing-lists.html for details.

DEVICE NAMES

       This backend expects device names of the form:

              special

       Where special is either the path-name for the special device that corresponds  to  a  SCSI
       scanner  or  the port number at which the parallel port scanners can be found (see section
       PARALLEL PORT SCANNERS below).  For SCSI scanners, the  special  device  name  must  be  a
       generic SCSI device or a symlink to such a device.  The program sane-find-scanner helps to
       find out the correct device. Under  Linux,  such  a  device  name  could  be  /dev/sg0  or
       /dev/sg3, for example.  See sane-scsi(5) for details.

CONFIGURATION

       The contents of the mustek.conf file is a list of options and device names that correspond
       to Mustek scanners.  Empty lines and lines starting with a hash mark (#) are ignored.  See
       sane-scsi(5) on details of what constitutes a valid device name.

       The   supported   options   are  linedistance-fix,  lineart-fix,  legal-size,  buffersize,
       blocksize, strip-height, disable-double-buffering, disable-backtracking, and force-wait.

       Options come in two flavors: global and positional ones.   Global  options  apply  to  all
       devices  managed by the backend whereas positional options apply just to the most recently
       mentioned device.  Note that this means  that  the  order  in  which  the  options  appear
       matters!

       Option  linedistance-fix  is  positional  and works around a problem that occurs with some
       SCSI controllers (notably the  ncr810  controller  under  Linux).   If  color  scans  have
       horizontal  stripes  and/or  the  colors  are  off,  then it's likely that your controller
       suffers from this problem.  Turning on this option usually fixes the problem.

       Option lineart-fix is positional and works around a timing problem  that  seems  to  exist
       with  certain  MFS-12000SP  scanners.   The problem manifests itself in dropped lines when
       scanning in lineart mode.  Turning on this option should fix the problem but may slow down
       scanning a bit.

       Option  legal-size  is  positional and sets the size of the scan area to Legal format. Set
       this option if you own a Paragon 12000 LS. It can't be distinguished by  software  from  a
       ScanExpress 12000 SP (ISO A4 format).

       Option buffersize is a positional option that overrides the default value set for the size
       of the SCSI buffer. The buffer size is specified in kilobytes. The default value  is  128.
       Because  of  double  buffering the buffer actually sent to the scanner is half the size of
       this value. Try to increase this value to achieve  higher  scan  speeds.  Note  that  some
       ScanExpress  scanners  don't  like buffer sizes above 64 kb (buffersize = 128). If your sg
       driver can't set SCSI buffer sizes at runtime you may have to change that value, too.  See
       sane-scsi(5) for details.

       Option  blocksize  is  a  positional  option  that overrides the default value set for the
       maximum amount of data scanned in one block. The buffer size is  specified  in  kilobytes.
       Some  scanners  freeze  if  this  value is bigger than 2048. The default value is 1 GB (so
       effectively no limit) for most scanners. Don't change this value if you don't know exactly
       what you do.

       Option strip-height is a global option that limits the maximum height of the strip scanned
       with a single SCSI read command.  The height is specified in  inches  and  may  contain  a
       fractional  part  (e.g.,  1.5).   Setting the strip-height to a small value (one inch, for
       example) reduces the likelihood of encountering problems with SCSI driver timeouts  and/or
       timeouts  with  other devices on the same SCSI bus.  Unfortunately, it also increases scan
       times. With current SCSI adapters and drivers this option shouldn't be needed any more.

       Option disable-double-buffering is a global option. If set, the backend will only send one
       buffer  at a time to the scanner. Try this option if you have trouble while scanning, e.g.
       SCSI errors, freezes, or the first few cm are repeated over and over again in your image.

       Option disable-backtracking is a positional option. If set, the scanner will not move back
       its  slider  after  each  SCSI buffer is filled (`backtracking'). Setting this option will
       lead to faster scans but may also produce horizontal stripes.  This  option  doesn't  work
       with every scanner (only some of the paragon models can modify backtracking).

       Finally,  force-wait is a global option. If set, the backend will wait until the device is
       ready before sending the inquiry command. Further more the backend  will  force  the  scan
       slider  to return to its starting position (not implemented for all scanners). This option
       may be necessary with the 600 II N or when scanimage  is  used  multiple  times  (e.g.  in
       scripts). The default is off (not set).

       A sample configuration file is shown below:

              # limit strip height of all scanners to 1.5 inches:
              option strip-height 1.5
              /dev/scanner    # first Mustek scanner
              # 1 MB buffer for /dev/scanner:
              option buffersize 1024
              /dev/sge        # second Mustek scanner
              # turn on fixes for /dev/sge:
              option lineart-fix
              option linedistance-fix

SCSI ADAPTER TIPS

       You  need  a SCSI adapter for the SCSI scanners. Even if the connector is the same as that
       of parallel port scanners, connecting it to the computers parallel port will NOT work.

       Mustek SCSI scanners are typically delivered with an  ISA  SCSI  adapter.   Unfortunately,
       that  adapter  is  not  worth  much  since  it is not interrupt driven.  It is (sometimes)
       possible to get the supplied card to work, but without interrupt line,  scanning  will  be
       very  slow  and  put so much load on the system, that it becomes almost unusable for other
       tasks.

       If you already have a working SCSI controller in your system,  you  should  consider  that
       Mustek  scanners  do not support the SCSI-2 disconnect/reconnect protocol and hence tie up
       the SCSI bus while a scan is in progress.  This means that no other  SCSI  device  on  the
       same bus can be accessed while a scan is in progress.

       Because  the  Mustek-supplied adapter is not worth much and because Mustek scanners do not
       support the SCSI-2 disconnect/reconnect protocol, it is recommended to install a  separate
       (cheap) SCSI controller for Mustek scanners.  For example, ncr810 based cards are known to
       work fine and cost as little as fifty US dollars.

       For Mustek scanners, it is typically necessary to configure the low-level SCSI  driver  to
       disable  synchronous  transfers  (sync  negotiation),  tagged  command queuing, and target
       disconnects.  See sane-scsi(5) for driver- and platform-specific information.

       The ScanExpress models have sometimes trouble with high  resolution  color  mode.  If  you
       encounter  sporadic  corrupted  images (parts duplicated or shifted horizontally) kill all
       other applications before  scanning  and  (if  sufficient  memory  is  available)  disable
       swapping.

       Details  on  how  to  get the Mustek SCSI adapters and other cards running can be found at
       http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/mustek-backend/#SCSI.

PARALLEL PORT SCANNERS

       This backend has support for the Paragon 600 II EP and Paragon  600  II  N  parallel  port
       scanners.   Note  that  the  latter  scanner comes with its own ISA card that implements a
       funky parallel port (in other words,  the  scanner  does  not  connected  to  the  printer
       parallel port).

       These scanners can be configured by listing the port number of the adapter or the parallel
       port in the mustek.conf file.  Valid port numbers for the  600  II  N  are  0x26b,  0x2ab,
       0x2eb,  0x22b,  0x32b, 0x36b, 0x3ab, 0x3eb.  For the 600 II EP use one of these: parport0,
       parport1, parport2, 0x378, 0x278, 0x3bc.  Pick one that doesn't conflict  with  the  other
       hardware in your computer. Put only one number on a single line. Example:

              0x3eb

       Note that for these scanners usually root privileges are required to access the I/O ports.
       Thus, either make frontends such as scanimage(1) and xscanimage(1) setuid root  (generally
       not  recommended  for  safety  reasons) or, alternatively, access this backend through the
       network daemon saned(8).

       If the Mustek backend blocks while sending the inquiry command to  the  scanner,  add  the
       option force-wait to mustek.conf.

       Also  note  that  after  a  while  of  no activity, some scanners themselves (not the SANE
       backend) turns off their CCFL lamps. This shutdown is not always perfect with  the  result
       that  the  lamp  sometimes  continues  to glow dimly at one end. This doesn't appear to be
       dangerous since as soon as you use the scanner again, the lamp turns back on to the normal
       high  brightness.  However, the first image scanned after such a shutdown may have stripes
       and appear to be over-exposed.  When this happens, just take another scan, and  the  image
       will be fine.

FILES

       @CONFIGDIR@/mustek.conf
              The backend configuration file (see also description of SANE_CONFIG_DIR below).

       @LIBDIR@/libsane-mustek.a
              The static library implementing this backend.

       @LIBDIR@/libsane-mustek.so
              The  shared  library  implementing  this  backend  (present on systems that support
              dynamic loading).

ENVIRONMENT

       SANE_CONFIG_DIR
              This environment variable specifies the list of directories that  may  contain  the
              configuration  file.   Under  UNIX, the directories are separated by a colon (`:'),
              under OS/2, they are separated by a semi-colon (`;').  If this variable is not set,
              the  configuration  file is searched in two default directories: first, the current
              working directory (".") and then in @CONFIGDIR@.  If the value of  the  environment
              variable  ends with the directory separator character, then the default directories
              are searched after the explicitly  specified  directories.   For  example,  setting
              SANE_CONFIG_DIR  to  "/tmp/config:"  would result in directories "tmp/config", ".",
              and "@CONFIGDIR@" being searched (in this order).

       SANE_DEBUG_MUSTEK
              If the library was compiled with debug support enabled, this  environment  variable
              controls  the  debug  level  for  this  backend.   Higher debug levels increase the
              verbosity of the output.

              Value  Description
              0      no output
              1      print fatal errors
              2      print important messages
              3      print non-fatal errors and less important messages
              4      print all but debugging messages
              5      print everything

              Example: export SANE_DEBUG_MUSTEK=4

SEE ALSO

       sane(7),   sane-find-scanner(1),   sane-scsi(5),    sane-mustek_usb(5),    sane-gt68xx(5),
       sane-plustek(5), sane-mustek_pp(5)
       @DOCDIR@/mustek/mustek.CHANGES
       http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/mustek-backend/

AUTHOR

       David  Mosberger,  Andreas  Czechanowski,  Andreas  Bolsch (SE extensions), Henning Meier-
       Geinitz, James Perry (600 II EP).

BUGS

       Scanning with the SCSI adapters supplied by Mustek is very slow at  high  resolutions  and
       wide scan areas.

       Some scanners (e.g. Paragon 1200 A3 + Pro, SE A3) need more testing.

       The gamma table supports only 256 colors, even if some scanners can do more.

       More   detailed   bug   information   is   available   at  the  Mustek  backend  homepage:
       http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/mustek-backend/.

@PACKAGEVERSION@                           13 Jul 2008                             sane-mustek(5)