Re: scanners

[Alex Hudson <home alexhudson com>]

Hi Rob,

On Fri, 2007-04-27 at 21:54 +0100, rob heatley wrote:
>     I am trying to get my bear paw 1200cu plus to work, I keep getting
> the message
>  Failed to open device  `gt68xx:libusb:004:002`: invalid argument.
> please help somebody, I have only installed Ubuntu for a couple of
> days, I am very new to this, 

Good to hear you're persevering; sadly there are some pieces of hardware
which GNU/Linux distributions like Ubuntu have trouble supporting, and
yours sounds like one of them.

As I understand it, the scanner actually requires a "firmware" - a piece
of software that is downloaded onto the scanner itself - in order for it
to work, and that's more or less what the error message is actually
saying. For various reasons, hardware which needs firmware isn't often
well supported - for a start, manufacturers often don't provide
permission to redistribute the firmware, which makes it illegal to copy.

I found this guide online, although it's probably a little bit
overwhelming:

	http://www.beranger.org/index.php?article=550

If it doesn't look too easy, the best place to try getting help isn't
really here (this isn't a mailing list for support, I'm afraid), but
there are good support options for Ubuntu:

	http://ubuntuforums.org/

	https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

If you're happy using mailing lists, I would hit the last link first -
that's the official Ubuntu user support mailing list, and will be much
better placed to help you. The forum link is less official, but if you
prefer using web forums you might like that better.

Good luck getting your scanner working!

Cheers,

Alex.