Installing MUSTEK 1200 UB Plus Scanners on Mandrake 9.2 and UBUNTO Breezy LINUX Systems


Before I did the following, I had problems in accessing the scanner from the GIMP and from the xsane program. The error messages started with complaints about the non-existence of a scanner thru "scanner busy".

Installation Notes:

  1. Mustek 1200 UB Plus scanners (a USB Scanner) are handled as  "gt68xx" scanners. When you do a "find scanners" on the Scanner management module of Mandrake Control Center, the detected device will be associated to a "gt68xx" backend. Don't worry, this is OK.
  2. Make sure that you have "sane" (Scanner Access is Now Easy)  installed. (Reminds of TWAIN : Technology Without An Interesting Name).
  3. Go to SANE home page ( http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane )  and click "GT68XX Backend" links. Download sbfw.usb from this site. (Local copy : sbfw.usb)
  4. Put the dnloaded sbfw.usb file into /usr/share/sane/gt68xx directory. You might have to create this directory.
  5. Edit /etc/sane.d/dll.config so that it contains only the lines

# enable the next line if you want to allow access through the network:
#net
gt68xx

I have  no experience with sharing scanners over the net so I really do not know whether uncommenting the "net" line will cause any problems. Probably not.

  1. Edit /etc/sane.d/gt68xx.conf so that MUSTEK 1200 UB Plus related block of lines read

# Mustek ScanExpress 1200 UB Plus, Medion/Lifetec/Tevion LT 9452, Trust
# Compact Scan USB 19200 use that one:
override "mustek-scanexpress-1200-ub-plus"
firmware "/usr/share/sane/gt68xx/sbfw.usb"

I uncommented the "override" directive which was already there and added the "firmware" directive. Note that the "firmware" directive points to the sbfw.usb file you have dnloaded from the SANE site and stored in /usr/share/sane/gt68xx.

  1. Run Xsane and enjoy!
During this work, my scanner was detected by the kernel and associated to device /dev/usb/scanner0. And; I never rebooted my machine, whereas installing the same scanner on a Win2000Pro system required a reboot. So now I understand why WinX admins feel  like important people; they have the authority to bring down a whole big server just to install a USB scanner. (Or place a purchase order for a new PC just because the operation needs a scanner and cannot afford a reboot.) Thinking of TCO and smiling....

Hope this helps people save time on installing MUSTEK 1200 UB Plus scanners on Mandrake 9.2 and UBUNTU Breezy Linux systems