Hi everyone, During the last years I've got quite some mails from users who wanted to know, if their scanner may work with a specific backend. They didn't know which chipset the scanner uses because they didn't want to open it (warranty or possible destruction). So I thought a utility that tries to find out the chipset that a scanner has may be useful. With the knowledge about the chipset it's easier to decide if an existing backend may support the scanner with some changes or if a completely new one is necessary.
So I just hacked together "check-usb-scanner". This tool uses some heuristics to check the USB descriptors of a device and send some bulk/control messages to find out the chipset. The list of chipsets is very limited currently, but these are the only ones I have: Grandtech GT-6801 (e.g. Mustek BearPaw 1200 CU) Grandtech GT-6816 (e.g. Mustek BearPaw 2400 CU Plus) Mustek MA-1015 (Mustek ScanExpress 1200 USB) Mustek MA-1017 (e.g. Mustek ScanExpress 1200 UB) Mustek MA-1509 (Mustek BearPaw 1200F, SCSI-over-USB) I know that there is a test program for lm983x based scanners, maybe it can be added? The difficult stuff is to make the tests in a way they don't freeze devices. You can't just send a control message that is understood by one chipset until you are (almost) sure that you send it to the correct device. Otherwise the device may be confused and won't react to further communication. Ok, here is the code and a little bit of documentation: http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/check-usb-scanner/ Please test your scanners. If a scanner/chipset is misdetected, please contact me. If you have a patch for a different chipset, I'll add it. Bye, Henning
