How to install HP ScanJet 5100C on SuSE Linux

This is how I installed Hewlett Packard ScanJet 5100C scanner on SuSE 10. Presumably, these instructions should be good also for other HP ScanJet scanners (see the list of ScanJet scanners supported by SANE hp-backend).

Prerequisites

Find out your current kernel version:

uname -r

My version was “2.6.13-15.8-default”. I refer to this in the remainder of the instructions. Replace the version number with what you actually have.

Make sure you have your kernel source installed. Go to /usr/src/ and look for a directory called linux-2.6.13-15.8/ or something similar depending on your kernel version. If you don’t have kernel sources, install them using YAST or download from the Internet.

There also should be a symbolic link called /usr/src/linux pointing to that directory (if not – create one by ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.13-15.8/ /usr/src/linux).

Install ppSCSI

cd /usr/src/
wget http://penguin-breeder.org/kernel/download/linux-ppscsi-2.6.x-20060424.gz
gunzip linux-ppscsi-2.6.x-20060424.gz
vi /usr/src/linux/drivers/parport/share.c

Insert a new line near the line 1008 (in the list of export symbols):

EXPORT_SYMBOL(parport_get_port);

Save changes and exit the editor (<ESC> :wq ).

cd /usr/src/linux
patch -p1 --dry-run < /usr/src/linux-ppscsi-2.6.x-20060424
cp /boot/config-2.6.13-15.8-default .config
make modules
make modules_install
cd ..
wget http://penguin-breeder.org/kernel/download/ppscsi-beta2-20060424.tar.gz
tar -xzf ppscsi-beta2-20060424.tar.gz
cd ppscsi-beta2/
make
cp ppscsi.ko /lib/modules/2.6.13-15.8-default/kernel/drivers/parport/
cp epst.ko /lib/modules/2.6.13-15.8-default/kernel/drivers/parport/
modprobe scsi_mod
modprobe sg
modprobe parport
modprobe parport_pc
modprobe ppscsi
modprobe epst
yast2 sysconfig &

YAST will start. Go to SYSTEM>KERNEL>MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT and enter all the abovementioned modules separated by space:

scsi_mod sg parport parport_pc ppscsi epst

Hit “Finish” to save the changes.

scanimage -L

This will output a line containing the device name as it is recognized by your system. The name should read something similar to /dev/sg0 or /dev/sg1 etc. Modify access privileges to it, so everybody can use the scanner. If you don’t, users may get a “No device found” error when they start xsane and will not be able to scan.

chmod a+rw /dev/sg0

SANE installation

Download current SANE frontends and backends archives from http://www.sane-project.org/source.html and XSANE source from ftp://ftp.sane-project.org/pub/sane/xsane.

tar -xzf sane-backends-1.0.17.tar.gz
cd sane-backends-1.0.17/
./configure
make
make install
cd ..
tar -xzf sane-frontends-1.0.14.tar.gz
cd sane-frontends-1.0.14/
./configure
make
make install
cd ..
tar -xzf xsane-0.991.tar.gz
cd xsane-0.991/
./configure
make
make install

Now everything is installed. You should be able to start XSANE by typing xsane and use its graphical interface to scan your documents.

I may have forgotten about something what I did during the installation. Please let me know if you encounter any errors.

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