[CS-FSLUG] re-install/partitioning problem solved -email & multifunction scanner?

Tue Nov 2 09:09:01 CST 2004

Hi Ruth,

On Friday 29 October 2004 05:29, Ruth Marlene Friesen wrote:
> I was careful to do the custom partitioning as close as possible to 
the 
> advice Fred and Don gave me. But when the install got to the summary 
> stage, everything froze up. Nothing moved. My eyes were swelling shut, 
I 
> had to turn off the computer and go to bed.
>
> I did try again on Sat. afternoon. This time, just before the 
> partitioning stage, when I was offered 3 options, I chose reformat the 
> hard drive, thinking I would get to do the partition in the next 
screen. 
> However, it went into auto install, and did it without my help. - I 
> decided to give Mandrake it's head, and see how it had done it 
> afterwards. Sure enough when it was complete I was able to get into 
> Mandrake Control Center, and have a look at the partitioning.
> 
> It had it thus;
> /  hda1 Journalized FS ext3 5.8GB
> /swap hda5 Linux swap 494mb
> /home hda6 Journalized FS. ext.3 3.7 GB
> 
> Remember, it has only 10 GB hard drive. But that's very close to what 
> Don Parris advised
> when he recommended to make;
> /   5.5 GB
> /swap  500 MB
> /home  4GB
> 
> Fred suggested;
> /   3 GB
> /swap  1 GB
> /usr  2GB
> /home  4GB

Well, thankfully it did work out at last.

> 
> At this point I'm willing to accept the autoinstalled partitions. When 
I 
> went to go online though, I couldn't get connected. KPPP kept saying 
the 
> modem does not respond.

I think that you have a Winmodem, right? If that's the case, you will 
need to install a separate driver before doing getting online. I mean, 
most Linux distributions do not have these drivers on their CDs due to 
license restrictions.

> 
> Some days I've had time to skim through the group emails, but never 
got 
> fully caught up.
> I have jotted down the email clients that have been recommended 
though, 
> as I'm hoping to set up my emails this Sat. so I can start dealing 
with 
> those from in Mandrake. I've seen Kmail and Evolution there, but will 
> have to hunt for these others.
> 
> Mainly I'm looking for a quick efficient way to file both my outgoing 
> and incoming emails, the way I can in Pegasus. (Presently in Win98 I'm 
> also using Thunderbird, but find some aspects frustrating. Like right 
> now I can't type as fast as I'd like because the cursor seems slow, 
and 
> the folder system is cumbersome.

I use KMail in Kontact (Kontact is a PIM similar to Evolution). It is 
simple enough to use, but as with all email clients, it needs extensive 
configuration and tweaking prior to use.

> 
> You know, sometimes I wonder if I'm making any progress because I have 
> so many other commitments and have to juggle a full schedule. But then 
> the Lord suddenly sends showers of blessings, and I'm ashamed of 
myself 
> for chaffing. For example, two days ago, an elderly woman/pen pal sent 
> me a parcel with some lovely clothes and some expensive supplements 
that 
> I could not afford on my own.  This week I had to push hard to get the 
> missions' newsletter completed and ready to take to the printers in 
the 
> city yesterday. I made it with some minor miracles with the last 
feature 
> in on Tuesday night. I stayed in the city for our Board meeting in the 
> evening, which went well in several ways. Then right in the midst of 
it
>  one of the Board members made a motion that they pay for me to get a 
> scanner. Someone else seconded it, and within moments, it was carried. 
> Before I left, the secretary handed me a signed blank cheque!
> 
> Dave said he knew I would shop very carefully and frugally, and I was 
> touched that they would know that about me. :)
> 

I'm not fully acquainted with scanning equipment, but I'll try to offer 
some pointers.

Scanner support in Unix systems is done through the SANE (Scanner Access 
Now Easy) engine. There is a lot of scanners supported with it, and 
they're available here:

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

As a rule of thumb, the first thing to consider is that SANE does not 
support parallell scanners, so always try to get an USB one. (I know 
parallell scanners are dinosaurs now, but in my country they're still 
being offered).

I have here a BenQ  Scan2Web 4300U that costed me US$ 54.00 and works 
very well under Linux though, obviously, it's not exactly high end 
equipment; but it's excellent value. This is a scanner that comes from 
a larger scanner family that is known as SnapScan, and is fully 
supported under SANE. You can get more details at the SnapScan backend 
homepage, at:

http://snapscan.sourceforge.net

Now, the bad news is that you will have to do some configuration work 
before you can use the equipment.

The big problem with these scanners is that usually the firmware for the 
device has to be loaded in the machine in each boot from the hard disk. 
In Windows, this would be ensured by the installer; but in Linux you 
have to tell the system where to look. You will have to edit the 
file /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf to do this.

My snapscan.conf looks like this in the first lines:

#------------------------------ General --------------------------------

# Change to the fully qualified filename of your firmware file, if
# firmware upload is needed by the scanner
firmware /usr/share/sane/firmware/u176v046.bin

# If not automatically found you may manually specify a device name.

# For USB scanners also specify bus=usb, e.g.
# /dev/usb/scanner0 bus=usb

# For SCSI scanners specify the generic device, e.g. /dev/sg0 on Linux.
# /dev/sg0

#---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# No changes should be necessary below this line
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------

look on the 'firmware' line. It is uncommented (a line that is begun by 
a hash mark, #, is a comment, ignored by the system).

You have to creat a folder specificaly for the scanner firmware, such 
as /usr/share/sane/firmware/. Then you would have to look into the 
Driver CD of your scanner for the firmware; you'll get a lot of files 
ending in the extension '.bin'. These are firmware files. Copy them all 
to your firmware driver, and then edit /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf so 
that the 'firmware' line now points to the first firmware file. After 
that, run the program "xsane" (with ALT+F2 on KDE) and see whether the 
system recognizes the scanner. If it does, great! if it doesn't, then 
replace the firmware file in the 'firmware' line for the second 
firmware file, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat, until you hit gold.

I know is a cumbersome process, but you would have to do it only once. 
Once it's done, all your apps, including the Gimp, Kooka and 
OpenOffice.org will be aware of your scanner.

Blessings,

Eduardo

-- 
Prof. Eduardo Sanchez
Asuncion, Paraguay, South America
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The rescue of drowning men is a duty worth dying for, but not worth
living for. It seems to me that all political duties (among which I
include military duties) are of this kind. A man may have to die for
our country, but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his
country. He who surenders himself without reservation to the temporal
claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that
which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.

 -- C.S. Lewis, "Learning in War-Time"

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