Archive for May 2007
Using a CanoScan LIDE 25 with sane and Ubuntu
In fiesty fawn support for CanoScan LIDE 25 is broken. The scanner gets identified properly and goes thru the motions of scanning and has an progress indicator on the xsane window but the scanned image results in a blank window. This is a documented bug and might be fixed with the next release.
a work around to this is to use the command line version of sane, here is how to do it
1. plug the scanner into the USB port and run the following command “sane-find-scanner “
you should see the follwing lines as pat of the output
found USB scanner (vendor=0×04a9 [Canon], product=0×2220 [CanoScan], chip=LM9832/3) at libusb:001:002
# Your USB scanner was (probably) detected. It may or may not be supported by
# SANE. Try scanimage -L and read the backend’s manpage.
2. type in “scanimage -L” at the terminal. you should see the follwing lines as part of the output
device `plustek:libusb:001:002′ is a Canon LiDE25 USB flatbed scanner
3. you can now use the following command to get a scan
“scanimage –format=tiff –mode=Gray –depth=16 –resolution=100dpi -l 0 -t 0 -x 215 -y 215 >> test”
you can set different options for the mode, depth and resolution to get better quality scans. to see the various options available try the“scanimage –help” command.
Update : I found a better method of fixing the scanner issue on this site
While the solution provided fixes any scanner broken during an update from previous versions to feisty the solution also works for fresh install of feisty as well.
here is how you fix the scanner in a nutshell
1. install scanbuttond using apt
2. list usb devices : lsusb
3. run scanbuttond : scanbuttond -r 1000000
3. list available imaging devices : scanimage -L
4. Test basic scanner operation : scanimage -T -d (Append output of scanimage -L here)
for e.g for my scanner the command looks like this “scanimage -T -d plustek:libusb:001:002″
5. Test gui scanner operation : xsane
The above link gives you more detailed instructions, you should refer to that site if you didn’t understand the 5 steps above.
Disabling drive mount icons on the Ubuntu desktop
The ubuntu desktop features icons of all the mounted drives and removable media, while this is a great feature it becomes an eyesore when you have lots of partitions or if you have several removable devices plugged int your computer. The desktop begins to get cluttered and begins to look unsightly, as a work around you can disable the mount icons. Here is how you do it
1. open terminal and type in “gconf-editor” and hit enter.
2. on the screen that pops up, look for a key called “apps” (this will be the first item on the left). Click on this item to expand it.
3. look for a key called “nautilus”, click on “nautilus” to expand it. click on the key called “desktop”.
4. on the right hand side of this window look for an entry called volumes_visible, uncheck this item and you are done.
Here is a screen shot of what the above procedure looks like

How to enable SD slot on a ZV6000 laptop running Ubuntu
I recently switched from fedora core 6 to Ubuntu and over the past few weeks have had no problems with the installation except with the SD slot. I found a link on the Ubuntu forum that has a small script that would enable the SD slot.
Here is how to enable the SD slot on any laptop that has an SD slot based on the Texas Instruments PCI6411/6421/6611/6621/7411/7421/7611/7621 chip-sets.
1. Create a file name sdhci.sh on your desktop with the following code
#!/bin/sh# from:#http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1614392#post1614392## Get lsb functions
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
LSPCI_ADDRESS=`lspci | grep "FlashMedia" | cut -d " " -f 1`
case "$1" in
start)
log_begin_msg "Configuring card reader"
modprobe fakephp || return 1
setpci -s ${LSPCI_ADDRESS} 86.b=90
setpci -s ${LSPCI_ADDRESS} 4c.b=02 # FlashMedia SD disable
setpci -s ${LSPCI_ADDRESS} 04.b=06 # SDHCI Mem+ BusMaster+
setpci -s ${LSPCI_ADDRESS} 88.b=01 # SDHCI DMA enable
modprobe sdhci || return 1
log_end_msg $?
;;
stop)
log_begin_msg "Shutting down card reader"
modprobe -r sdhci
lsmod | grep -q sdhci && return 1
setpci -s ${LSPCI_ADDRESS} 88.b=00 # SDHCI DMA disable
setpci -s ${LSPCI_ADDRESS} 04.b=07 # SDHCI Mem- BusMaster-
setpci -s ${LSPCI_ADDRESS} 4c.b=00 # FlashMedia SD enable
setpci -s ${LSPCI_ADDRESS} 86.b=d0
modprobe -r fakephp
log_end_msg $?
;;
*)
log_success_msg "Usage: /etc/init.d/sdhci start|stop"
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0
2. make the file executable using the following command
chmod +x sdhci
3. Execute the file in a terminal using the following command
sudo ./sdhci.sh start
If every thing works fine and you will see a message ” * Configuring card reader [ OK ]”
4. To start this script automatically move the script into /etc/init.d use the following command to accomplish this
sudo mv sdhci.sh /etc/init.d
5. finally add the script to be executed during boot sequence by executing the following command
sudo update-rc.d sdhci.sh defaults
you should see the following message on screen
Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/sdhci.sh …
/etc/rc0.d/K20sdhci.sh -> ../init.d/sdhci.sh
/etc/rc1.d/K20sdhci.sh -> ../init.d/sdhci.sh
/etc/rc6.d/K20sdhci.sh -> ../init.d/sdhci.sh
/etc/rc2.d/S20sdhci.sh -> ../init.d/sdhci.sh
/etc/rc3.d/S20sdhci.sh -> ../init.d/sdhci.sh
/etc/rc4.d/S20sdhci.sh -> ../init.d/sdhci.sh
/etc/rc5.d/S20sdhci.sh -> ../init.d/sdhci.sh
That’s it you are done
, you can now start fooling around with the card reader.