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sane-mustek - SANE backend for Mustek SCSI flatbed scanners (and some other devices)
DESCRIPTION
The sane-mustek library implements a SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) backend that provides access to Mustek (and
some relabeled Trust and Primax) SCSI and parport flatbed scanners. At present, the following scanners are known
to work more or less with this backend:
Paragon MFS-6000CX
Paragon MFS-12000CX
Paragon MFC-600S, 600 II CD, ScanMagic 600 II SP
Paragon MFC-800S, 800 II SP
Paragon MFS-6000SP
Paragon MFS-8000SP
Paragon MFS-1200SP, MFS-12000SP
ScanExpress 6000SP
ScanExpress 12000SP, 12000SP Plus, Paragon 1200 III SP, ScanMagic 9636S, 9636S Plus
Paragon 1200 LS
ScanExpress A3 SP
Paragon 1200 SP Pro
Paragon 1200 A3 Pro
Paragon 600 II EP
Paragon 600 II N
Trust Imagery 1200
Trust Imagery 1200 SP
Trust Imagery 4800 SP
Trust SCSI Connect 19200
Primax Compact 4800 SCSI
More details can be found on the Mustek SCSI backend homepage http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/mustek-backend/.
Don't mix up MFS (Paragon), Pro and ScanExpress models! They're completely different. Check the exact model name!
Note that most of the above scanners come with a SCSI interface. The only non-SCSI scanners that have some sup-
port at this point is the 600 II N and 600 II EP scanners. The former one comes with its own parallel port
adapter (i.e., it does not attach to the printer port). Both scanners use the SCSI protocol internally, too. More
info on how to use these parallel port scanners can be found below in section PARALLEL PORT SCANNERS. Other par-
allel port scanners are not supported by this backend but you may be successful using the Mustek parallel port
backend mustek_pp, see sane-mustek_pp(5). USB scanners are also not supported by this backend but the ma1509,
mustek_usb, gt68xx, and plustek backends include support for some of them, see sane-ma1509(5), sanemustek_usb(5),
sane-gt68xx(5), and sane-plustek(5).
Mustek scanners have no protection against exceeding the physical scan area height. That is, if a scan is
attempted with a height that exceeds the height of the scan surface, the scanner begins making loud noises and
the scan mechanism may be damaged. Thus, if you hear such a noise, IMMEDIATELY turn off the scanner. This
shouldn't happen if your scanner is in the list of known scanners. There is more information in the
/usr/share/doc/packages/sane/sane-backends/PROBLEMS file.
If you own a Mustek (or Trust) scanner other than the ones listed above that works with this backend, please let
us know by sending the scanner's exact model name (look at the front and back of the scanner) and a debug output
to sane-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org. You can get the debug output by setting the environment variable
SANE_DEBUG_MUSTEK to 5 and showing the list of available scanners with scanimage -L. Please send all of it to the
mailing list. You must be subscribed to sane-devel before you can send mail to the list. See http://www.sane-
project.org/mailing-lists.html for details.
DEVICE NAMES
This backend expects device names of the form:
special
Where special is either the path-name for the special device that corresponds to a SCSI scanner or the port
number at which the parallel port scanners can be found (see section PARALLEL PORT SCANNERS below). For SCSI
scanners, the special device name must be a generic SCSI device or a symlink to such a device. The program sane-
find-scanner helps to find out the correct device. Under Linux, such a device name could be /dev/sg0 or /dev/sg3,
for example. See sane-scsi(5) for details.
CONFIGURATION
The contents of the mustek.conf file is a list of options and device names that correspond to Mustek scanners.
Empty lines and lines starting with a hash mark (#) are ignored. See sane-scsi(5) on details of what constitutes
a valid device name.
The supported options are linedistance-fix, lineart-fix, legal-size, buffersize, blocksize, strip-height, dis-
able-double-buffering, disable-backtracking, and force-wait.
Options come in two flavors: global and positional ones. Global options apply to all devices managed by the
backend whereas positional options apply just to the most recently mentioned device. Note that this means that
the order in which the options appear matters!
Option linedistance-fix is positional and works around a problem that occurs with some SCSI controllers (notably
the ncr810 controller under Linux). If color scans have horizontal stripes and/or the colors are off, then it's
likely that your controller suffers from this problem. Turning on this option usually fixes the problem.
Option lineart-fix is positional and works around a timing problem that seems to exist with certain MFS-12000SP
scanners. The problem manifests itself in dropped lines when scanning in lineart mode. Turning on this option
should fix the problem but may slow down scanning a bit.
Option legal-size is positional and sets the size of the scan area to Legal format. Set this option if you own a
Paragon 12000 LS. It can't be distinguished by software from a ScanExpress 12000 SP (ISO A4 format).
Option buffersize is a positional option that overrides the default value set for the size of the SCSI buffer.
The buffer size is specified in kilobytes. The default value is 128. Because of double buffering the buffer actu-
ally sent to the scanner is half the size of this value. Try to increase this value to achieve higher scan
speeds. Note that some ScanExpress scanners don't like buffer sizes above 64 kb (buffersize = 128). If your sg
driver can't set SCSI buffer sizes at runtime you may have to change that value, too. See sane-scsi(5) for
details.
Option blocksize is a positional option that overrides the default value set for the maximum amount of data
scanned in one block. The buffer size is specified in kilobytes. Some scanners freeze if this value is bigger
than 2048. The default value is 1 GB (so effectively no limit) for most scanners. Don't change this value if you
don't know exactly what you do.
Option strip-height is a global option that limits the maximum height of the strip scanned with a single SCSI
read command. The height is specified in inches and may contain a fractional part (e.g., 1.5). Setting the
strip-height to a small value (one inch, for example) reduces the likelihood of encountering problems with SCSI
driver timeouts and/or timeouts with other devices on the same SCSI bus. Unfortunately, it also increases scan
times. With current SCSI adapters and drivers this option shouldn't be needed any more.
Option disable-double-buffering is a global option. If set, the backend will only send one buffer at a time to
the scanner. Try this option if you have trouble while scanning, e.g. SCSI errors, freezes, or the first few cm
are repeated over and over again in your image.
Option disable-backtracking is a positional option. If set, the scanner will not move back its slider after each
SCSI buffer is filled (`backtracking'). Setting this option will lead to faster scans but may also produce hori-
zontal stripes. This option doesn't work with every scanner (only some of the paragon models can modify back-
tracking).
Finally, force-wait is a global option. If set, the backend will wait until the device is ready before sending
the inquiry command. Further more the backend will force the scan slider to return to its starting position (not
implemented for all scanners). This option may be necessary with the 600 II N or when scanimage is used multiple
times (e.g. in scripts). The default is off (not set).
A sample configuration file is shown below:
# limit strip height of all scanners to 1.5 inches:
option strip-height 1.5
/dev/scanner # first Mustek scanner
# 1 MB buffer for /dev/scanner:
option buffersize 1024
/dev/sge # second Mustek scanner
# turn on fixes for /dev/sge:
option lineart-fix
option linedistance-fix
SCSI ADAPTER TIPS
You need a SCSI adapter for the SCSI scanners. Even if the connector is the same as that of parallel port scan-
ners, connecting it to the computers parallel port will NOT work.
Mustek SCSI scanners are typically delivered with an ISA SCSI adapter. Unfortunately, that adapter is not worth
much since it is not interrupt driven. It is (sometimes) possible to get the supplied card to work, but without
interrupt line, scanning will be very slow and put so much load on the system, that it becomes almost unusable
for other tasks.
If you already have a working SCSI controller in your system, you should consider that Mustek scanners do not
support the SCSI-2 disconnect/reconnect protocol and hence tie up the SCSI bus while a scan is in progress. This
means that no other SCSI device on the same bus can be accessed while a scan is in progress.
Because the Mustek-supplied adapter is not worth much and because Mustek scanners do not support the SCSI-2 dis-
connect/reconnect protocol, it is recommended to install a separate (cheap) SCSI controller for Mustek scanners.
For example, ncr810 based cards are known to work fine and cost as little as fifty US dollars.
For Mustek scanners, it is typically necessary to configure the low-level SCSI driver to disable synchronous
transfers (sync negotiation), tagged command queuing, and target disconnects. See sane-scsi(5) for driver- and
platform-specific information.
The ScanExpress models have sometimes trouble with high resolution color mode. If you encounter sporadic cor-
rupted images (parts duplicated or shifted horizontally) kill all other applications before scanning and (if suf-
ficient memory is available) disable swapping.
Details on how to get the Mustek SCSI adapters and other cards running can be found at http://www.meier-
geinitz.de/sane/mustek-backend/#SCSI.
PARALLEL PORT SCANNERS
This backend has support for the Paragon 600 II EP and Paragon 600 II N parallel port scanners. Note that the
latter scanner comes with its own ISA card that implements a funky parallel port (in other words, the scanner
does not connected to the printer parallel port).
These scanners can be configured by listing the port number of the adapter or the parallel port in the
mustek.conf file. Valid port numbers for the 600 II N are 0x26b, 0x2ab, 0x2eb, 0x22b, 0x32b, 0x36b, 0x3ab,
0x3eb. For the 600 II EP use one of these: parport0, parport1, parport2, 0x378, 0x278, 0x3bc. Pick one that
doesn't conflict with the other hardware in your computer. Put only one number on a single line. Example:
0x3eb
Note that for these scanners usually root privileges are required to access the I/O ports. Thus, either make
frontends such as scanimage(1) and xscanimage(1) setuid root (generally not recommended for safety reasons) or,
alternatively, access this backend through the network daemon saned(8).
If the Mustek backend blocks while sending the inquiry command to the scanner, add the option force-wait to
mustek.conf.
Also note that after a while of no activity, some scanners themselves (not the SANE backend) turns off their CCFL
lamps. This shutdown is not always perfect with the result that the lamp sometimes continues to glow dimly at one
end. This doesn't appear to be dangerous since as soon as you use the scanner again, the lamp turns back on to
the normal high brightness. However, the first image scanned after such a shutdown may have stripes and appear to
be over-exposed. When this happens, just take another scan, and the image will be fine.
FILES
/etc/sane.d/mustek.conf
The backend configuration file (see also description of SANE_CONFIG_DIR below).
/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-mustek.a
The static library implementing this backend.
/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-mustek.so
The shared library implementing this backend (present on systems that support dynamic loading).
ENVIRONMENT
SANE_CONFIG_DIR
This environment variable specifies the list of directories that may contain the configuration file.
Under UNIX, the directories are separated by a colon (`:'), under OS/2, they are separated by a semi-colon
(`;'). If this variable is not set, the configuration file is searched in two default directories: first,
the current working directory (".") and then in /etc/sane.d. If the value of the environment variable
ends with the directory separator character, then the default directories are searched after the explic-
itly specified directories. For example, setting SANE_CONFIG_DIR to "/tmp/config:" would result in direc-
tories "tmp/config", ".", and "/etc/sane.d" being searched (in this order).
SANE_DEBUG_MUSTEK
If the library was compiled with debug support enabled, this environment variable controls the debug level
for this backend. Higher debug levels increase the verbosity of the output.
Value Description
0 no output
1 print fatal errors
2 print important messages
3 print non-fatal errors and less important messages
4 print all but debugging messages
5 print everything
Example: export SANE_DEBUG_MUSTEK=4
RELATED
sane(7), sane-find-scanner(1), sane-scsi(5), sane-mustek_usb(5), sane-gt68xx(5), sane-plustek(5), sanemustek_pp(5),
/usr/share/doc/packages/sane/sane-backends/mustek/mustek.CHANGES
http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/mustek-backend/
BUGS
Scanning with the SCSI adapters supplied by Mustek is very slow at high resolutions and wide scan areas.
Some scanners (e.g. Paragon 1200 A3 + Pro, SE A3) need more testing.
The gamma table supports only 256 colors, even if some scanners can do more.
More detailed bug information is available at the Mustek backend homepage: http://www.meier-
geinitz.de/sane/mustek-backend/.
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