Many scanner options are available, from old-fashioned parallel port devices to SCSI-connected units. These days, most people will choose a USB scanner for its low price and easy connection to the system. As with all devices, a visit to the Web site for USB devices for Linux will save you time (and money) by helping you select a device well suited to run under Linux. With most modern Linux distributions, your scanner will be detected automatically, so there isn't much you need to do in terms of configuration if yours is a supported model. What models are supported? The USB devices list I mentioned in Chapter 8 is a great start. Since scanning under Linux is done using a package called SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy), that site is one of the best places to check out scanner compatibility. Here's the link:
That page also has a link to the Scanner Search Engine. This is a fantastic tool that lets you enter a specific model number to find out if it is supported. You can even put in the name of a particular vendor and it will list all the scanners by that manufacturer. |