What? More Devices?

We've covered a lot of ground here, but we are by no means finished. Those things we attach to our PCs aren't much good if we don't put them in context with the tools and applications we use them with. Those tools tend to require a somewhat more in-depth examination. For instance, burning CDs isn't just about creating collections of your favorite songs. People use them for backups, as well, or to make collections of digital photos for sharing with the family. I'll tell you all about CD burning in Chapter 18. Most CD and DVD burners are automatically recognized under Linux.

The same is true of scanners. These gizmos are incredibly handy devices for the home or office. Aside from converting nondigital pictures to place on your Web site, you can use your scanner as a photocopier and as a way to send faxes when the pages require your signature (you can fax from a word processor, after all). For the most part, your scanning application autodetects your scanner and configures it for you (see Figure 6-13). You'll find XSane under your Graphics submenu.

Figure 6-13. XSane, the image scanning application included with Ubuntu, autodetects and automatically configures many popular scanners.

By the way, XSane is also a great program for sending images in an email, faxing documents, or making photocopies.

To help you in choosing a scanner that is well supported under Linux, check out the SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) page of supported devices.

http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html

There's also a scanner search engine on that page to make locating your devices that much easier.