Problem Compiling / Installing Device Driver -

[doctormann]

Hi there Linux users. I wonder if any of you can help with a problem I'm having?

I'm currently running Mint Isadora in a dual boot configuration with XP and Isadora is completely up to date. I'm trying to install a Linux driver for my UMAX Astra 4100 scanner. This is not directly supported by SANE but I'm led to believe that a Primax USB driver might do the job. I've located and downloaded this driver from the Primax site and it's in the form of a .tar.gz file.

I have decompressed this .tar file and now have a folder containing, amongst other things, a README file, an INSTALL file and a configuration file. The instructions in the INSTALL file just say use the terminal as root, cd to the folder where the decompressed files are located then use ./configure, followed by 'make' and then 'make install'. I have followed this procedure but at the 'make' step I get a very long list of errors, the last of which is 'Error 1.' It seems that the compiler can't find quite a lot of stuff that it needs.

I've previously installed 'build-essential' and SANE and any other packages that were identified as dependencies. I must have missed something vital but I've no idea what. I don't really understand what the error list is telling me - I can post it here if anyone wants to look at it but it is very long.

I don't suppose that the problem could be that the decompressed files need to be in a specific location could it? The tar file downloaded into the 'Downloads' folder in my 'Home' directory so I created a sub-folder for it there and decompressed the tar into that folder. I tried to do the install from there.

I've trawled the Linux forums on the Internet but most of the stuff on there is well over my head. I didn't find anything obvious.

Any help / suggestions much appreciated.

Thanks,

DM

[dharmabm]

maybe need the module-assist package? i think build-essential checks for the correct kernel headers and compiler version, but i always used module-assist to build kernel driver modules.

k

[RKASA]

Does mint use deb or rpm? Does the web site have a packager or team that can put one up for you? If so, then you only need to click and install. Why would they not want to also add this to their repository for others to use as well? Who the hack as a user still builds anything anymore?

[doctormann]

maybe need the module-assist package? i think build-essential checks for the correct kernel headers and compiler version, but i always used module-assist to build kernel driver modules.

k

Thanks.

I didn't have module-assist installed but I do now. Hasn't made any difference though! Some of the errors seem to be associated with missing bits of libsane, which I assume is the SANE library. The system reckons that this is installed though so what the problem is I've no idea!

Why is everything on Linux so difficult? I was hoping to migrate from XP but there's no chance at this rate. It seems that installing any software is a problem unless it's already included in the Package Manager and even then things are often not straightforward!

DM

[doctormann]

Does mint use deb or rpm? Does the web site have a packager or team that can put one up for you? If so, then you only need to click and install. Why would they not want to also add this to their repository for others to use as well? Who the hack as a user still builds anything anymore?

I'm pretty sure that Mint uses Debian. I've had no joy with the web site. Certainly, if the software is included in the repository, the installation usually works OK. The problem really is that my UMAX scanner isn't supported by SANE and maybe never will be. I'm reluctant to scrap it though as it works perfectly under XP.

The nub of the problem though is the inability to compile and install the driver that I have downloaded. OK, it's a Primax driver rather than a UMAX driver but it might work if only I could get it to compile!

DM

[siamect]

Does mint use deb or rpm? Does the web site have a packager or team that can put one up for you? If so, then you only need to click and install. Why would they not want to also add this to their repository for others to use as well? Who the hack as a user still builds anything anymore?

I'm pretty sure that Mint uses Debian. I've had no joy with the web site. Certainly, if the software is included in the repository, the installation usually works OK. The problem really is that my UMAX scanner isn't supported by SANE and maybe never will be. I'm reluctant to scrap it though as it works perfectly under XP.

The nub of the problem though is the inability to compile and install the driver that I have downloaded. OK, it's a Primax driver rather than a UMAX driver but it might work if only I could get it to compile!

DM

sudo apt-get install primaxscan

I don't know if this is the right one but try....seems to be an LPT driver

Edited September 27, 2010 by siamect

[siamect]

sudo apt-get install primaxscan

I don't know if this is the right one but try....seems to be an LPT driver

Sorry to lead you in the wrong direction... The scanner is not supported, not by Sane at least... guess you knew... sorry I didn't read your post careful enough... forget this scanner if GNU/Linux is what you want....

https://help.ubuntu....C/scanning.html

Martin

Edited September 27, 2010 by siamect

[dharmabm]

Does mint use deb or rpm? Does the web site have a packager or team that can put one up for you? If so, then you only need to click and install. Why would they not want to also add this to their repository for others to use as well? Who the hack as a user still builds anything anymore?

mint is ubuntu based, which is ultimately debian based (so deb), but i have often had to compile drivers manually (back when i used nothing but debian), particularly wireless drivers, and i always made sure to have build-essential and module-assist installed first, it made the process virtually painless. but like you, i now build everything by hand anyway, so i'm just working from memory.

[dharmabm]

maybe need the module-assist package? i think build-essential checks for the correct kernel headers and compiler version, but i always used module-assist to build kernel driver modules.

k

Thanks.

I didn't have module-assist installed but I do now. Hasn't made any difference though! Some of the errors seem to be associated with missing bits of libsane, which I assume is the SANE library. The system reckons that this is installed though so what the problem is I've no idea!

Why is everything on Linux so difficult? I was hoping to migrate from XP but there's no chance at this rate. It seems that installing any software is a problem unless it's already included in the Package Manager and even then things are often not straightforward!

DM

'everything' in linux is not necessarily difficult, but the beauty is than once you get it working you know a little bit more about how and why it works, and of course you never have to worry about virii and malware (i have never installed any antivirus software to any linux build in over 15 years, and have NEVER had a virus!)

anyway, go ahead and post the output of the make install (you can redirect it to a text file and post as an attachment, or PM it to me) and we will try to help. but don't give up, the knowing is the reward, and in the end it will be worth it, it you have a curious mind! ;>}

[dharmabm]

ok, first of all i am sorry, i missed several posts before i replied, so much of my post was irrelevant. i made a quick search of the linux support for this scanner and it doesn't look promising, however that does not mean it is impossible (where there is a will there is a way). i will look into it further and post any results.

still post the output of your build attempt, it may yet help.

Edited September 27, 2010 by dharmabm

[dharmabm]

Does mint use deb or rpm? Does the web site have a packager or team that can put one up for you? If so, then you only need to click and install. Why would they not want to also add this to their repository for others to use as well? Who the hack as a user still builds anything anymore?

mint is ubuntu based, which is ultimately debian based (so deb), but i have often had to compile drivers manually (back when i used nothing but debian), particularly wireless drivers, and i always made sure to have build-essential and module-assist installed first, it made the process virtually painless. but like you, i now build everything by hand anyway, so i'm just working from memory.

since i can't edit this anymore, i'll just reply to myself to say - i've really got my head up my ass tonight, i thought i was replying to someone else, sorry.

[doctormann]

maybe need the module-assist package? i think build-essential checks for the correct kernel headers and compiler version, but i always used module-assist to build kernel driver modules.

k

Thanks.

I didn't have module-assist installed but I do now. Hasn't made any difference though! Some of the errors seem to be associated with missing bits of libsane, which I assume is the SANE library. The system reckons that this is installed though so what the problem is I've no idea!

Why is everything on Linux so difficult? I was hoping to migrate from XP but there's no chance at this rate. It seems that installing any software is a problem unless it's already included in the Package Manager and even then things are often not straightforward!

DM

'everything' in linux is not necessarily difficult, but the beauty is than once you get it working you know a little bit more about how and why it works, and of course you never have to worry about virii and malware (i have never installed any antivirus software to any linux build in over 15 years, and have NEVER had a virus!)

anyway, go ahead and post the output of the make install (you can redirect it to a text file and post as an attachment, or PM it to me) and we will try to help. but don't give up, the knowing is the reward, and in the end it will be worth it, it you have a curious mind! ;>}

OK, I've run Terminal again and the output text file is attached. It might as well be written in Chinese so far as I'm concerned but there are obviously a lot of things that seem to be missing! See what you can make of it.

Thanks,

DM

Terminal Output.txt

[siamect]

[

OK, I've run Terminal again and the output text file is attached. It might as well be written in Chinese so far as I'm concerned but there are obviously a lot of things that seem to be missing! See what you can make of it.

Thanks,

DM

Please my friend... this thing was maintained until 2002.... Just forget it!

Even if you get it compiled it is not going to make you any happier...

and there is a version in the repo

type:

sudo apt-get install primaxscan

[sudo] password for martin:

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done

The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:

libtwolame0 libavutil49 libsoundtouch1c2 libwxgtk2.8-0 audacity-data

libflac++6 libavformat52 libschroedinger-1.0-0 libwxbase2.8-0 libgsm1

libavcodec52 libmad0 libid3tag0

Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.

The following NEW packages will be installed:

primaxscan

0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 167 not upgraded.

Need to get 19.5kB of archives.

After this operation, 90.1kB of additional disk space will be used.

Get:1 http://mirrors.us.kernel.org karmic/universe primaxscan 0.93beta3-10 [19.5kB]

Fetched 19.5kB in 1s (10.3kB/s)

Selecting previously deselected package primaxscan.

(Reading database ... 185800 files and directories currently installed.)

Unpacking primaxscan (from .../primaxscan_0.93beta3-10_i386.deb) ...

Processing triggers for man-db ...

Setting up primaxscan (0.93beta3-10) ...

and it is installed but it still sux...

Martin

[siamect]

but ok... if you are into selfinflicted pain... try to install automake first

sudo apt-get install automake

and then i think ypu are missing sane

sudo apt-get install xsane

Then try to compile again the same way you did earlier ./configure and so on

Martin

Edited September 28, 2010 by siamect

[dharmabm]

i'm with martin, i don't think you actually have sane installed, and it is definitely failing the check for automake. i would be sure and get sane (and maybe xsane) from the repo, but i would first check to see if the scanner is detected before compiling that driver. i have seen numerous posts about unsupported scanners that 'just work', and one post suggesting plugging in the usb before the power on the scanner to get it recognized. maybe you will get lucky, but none of it will work without sane properly installed. there is supposed to be a sane-umax backend available, but i cannot find it in either mint or ubuntu's repos, maybe it is installed by default. regardless of any of this, it seems to be universally accepted as a crappy scanner, even in windoze, but good luck!

[doctormann]

Well, there's been no progress I'm afraid.

I installed primaxscan from the repository. No joy detecting the scanner.

I installed automake.

I installed xsane but terminal told me that it already had the latest version installed.

Trying to compile the file gives the same result as before so no joy again. I don't understand why I can't compile the driver - is this because things have altered so much since 2002 that SANE is substantially different so that bits that need to be found are no longer there or have different names or what? OK, the driver might not do the job in the end - highly likely - but I can't even compile the thing!!

I think that I may have to give up. I can still use the UMAX under XP so it's not a big problem. I've always found the UMAX to be a perfectly adequate scanner for my purposes by the way. Does the job and doesn't fall over and I'm just reluctant to bin it. It is more or less the only thing that's stopping me scrapping Windows though, which I really would like to do. Any recommendations for a scanner that definitely works with Linux? Preferably one that comes with a pre-compiled driver!

Thanks for trying to help everybody.

DM

[siamect]

Well, there's been no progress I'm afraid.

I installed primaxscan from the repository. No joy detecting the scanner.

I installed automake.

I installed xsane but terminal told me that it already had the latest version installed.

Trying to compile the file gives the same result as before so no joy again. I don't understand why I can't compile the driver - is this because things have altered so much since 2002 that SANE is substantially different so that bits that need to be found are no longer there or have different names or what? OK, the driver might not do the job in the end - highly likely - but I can't even compile the thing!!

I think that I may have to give up. I can still use the UMAX under XP so it's not a big problem. I've always found the UMAX to be a perfectly adequate scanner for my purposes by the way. Does the job and doesn't fall over and I'm just reluctant to bin it. It is more or less the only thing that's stopping me scrapping Windows though, which I really would like to do. Any recommendations for a scanner that definitely works with Linux? Preferably one that comes with a pre-compiled driver!

Thanks for trying to help everybody.

DM

http://px-backend.sourceforge.net/install.html

Maybe you saw it already....

I have not been able to complite it ....but

... automake is on 1.11 now... he fail because he look for 1.4 there is a row in the configure file

am__api_version="1.4"

Change to

am__api_version="1.11"

install sane and the libieee...

sudo apt-get install sane libieee1284-3

It will complain about io.h in a few files

change to sys/io.h

and still I got some errors....probably related to io.h

Good luck, you will need it...

Martin

[doctormann]

Well, there's been no progress I'm afraid.

I installed primaxscan from the repository. No joy detecting the scanner.

I installed automake.

I installed xsane but terminal told me that it already had the latest version installed.

Trying to compile the file gives the same result as before so no joy again. I don't understand why I can't compile the driver - is this because things have altered so much since 2002 that SANE is substantially different so that bits that need to be found are no longer there or have different names or what? OK, the driver might not do the job in the end - highly likely - but I can't even compile the thing!!

I think that I may have to give up. I can still use the UMAX under XP so it's not a big problem. I've always found the UMAX to be a perfectly adequate scanner for my purposes by the way. Does the job and doesn't fall over and I'm just reluctant to bin it. It is more or less the only thing that's stopping me scrapping Windows though, which I really would like to do. Any recommendations for a scanner that definitely works with Linux? Preferably one that comes with a pre-compiled driver!

Thanks for trying to help everybody.

DM

http://px-backend.sourceforge.net/install.html

Maybe you saw it already....

I have not been able to complite it ....but

... automake is on 1.11 now... he fail because he look for 1.4 there is a row in the configure file

am__api_version="1.4"

Change to

am__api_version="1.11"

install sane and the libieee...

sudo apt-get install sane libieee1284-3

It will complain about io.h in a few files

change to sys/io.h

and still I got some errors....probably related to io.h

Good luck, you will need it...

Martin

Thanks. My head hurts even just thinking about it!

I've given up for now - I'll give it another go when I'm feeling masochisitic. Or maybe I'll just get a new scanner.

DM