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I just got a plustek optic book 3800. I also just reinstalled Ubuntu on my dell machine.

  • I don't know if I have "sane" or not, or what it is or how it works.
  • The plustek optic book 3600 is listed with "basic" support on the the SANE page, but the 3800 is not listed anywhere. I'm hoping they're the same?
  • My scanner plugs in with a USB and the offial documentation says it's supposed to just work

...but it doesn't. Nothing happens whatsoever.

SO! Question! How do I make it work? Please tell me how do I make it work starting with a clean install of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Please assume I am comfortable in a terminal, but don't know what any of the fancy ubuntu language like "backend" means. Please also explain what you mean when you say things like "verify that the settings in etc etc etc are correct" -- I need more details than that!

Thanks!

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I was trying to get a different scanner to work recently so I should be able to help. Thanks for your clear post. The documentation says that it MIGHT just work once you plug it it, not that it definitely will.

According to the SANE website link, a backend is a driver. SANE is merely a collection of scanner drivers. You need a driver for your scanner so that your computer can 'talk' to it, SANE might give you that driver (automatically) so make sure it's installed and then give connecting the scanner another go:

If you don't know if you've got SANE, try installing it. Use sudo apt install sane and maybe sudo apt install xsane for its user interface.

[Comment with any problems and I'll try to edit the answer as appropriate when I'm around.]

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  • Hi! I lost my login information and was not able to get back to your answer until now. I installed sane and xsane. I went back to the documentation and opened xsane and some windows came up. Pressing scan on my scanner did nothing. Clicking scan in the xsane window produced an error: "Failed to start scanner: Error during device I/O" Do you know what this means?
    – Pinkie B
    Dec 15, 2015 at 1:41
  • It probably means that it's not working (on the software side)! Sorry, I think this driver (included in sane) deals with the 3600 but it's only 'basic' support, as you say, and not the 3800. The page was last modified in 2008 so I doubt the driver was picked up by anyone after the developer of it stopped developing it. I guess that the best place to ask for help now would be the sane-devel mailing list as suggested on the Genesys page.
    – Ads20000
    Dec 16, 2015 at 19:16
  • Just wanted to thank you for helping me. I haven't been a very grateful community member, but you really do save me. I'll try to be better (and log in more than once every 3 years!)
    – Pinkie B
    Aug 23, 2019 at 21:16

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