Agfa snapscan with Linux

Years ago I bought an Agfa Snapscan E40 scanner when they were on sale in a Lidl shop. I ran it for some time on my Knoppix computer Scandium but that one is inaccessable at the moment. So I needed to hook it up to one of the more recent machines that were connected to my KVM switch.

To cut a long story short: I connected it to my Debian Sarge system (Beryllium). Connecting is easy:

Put the sanner on a level surface
Connect the USB cables on both ends (scanner and PC)
Apply power to the Snapscan

On older systems you need to access the scanner via /dev/scanner0. On newer systems a touch of magic seems to be onnipresent. Here is one of the magic spells used:

jan@beryllium:~/modula/m4m$ scanimage -L
device snapscan:libusb:001:002' is a AGFA SNAPSCAN e40 flatbed scanner
jan@beryllium:~/modula/m4m$

If you get this, that is a good sign. It says that the system knows about your new toy. For the snapscan to operate you just need to make some minor changes to the file /etc/sane.d/snapscan.con. Here comes my full file:

#------------------------------ General -----------------------------------

# Change to the fully qualified filename of your firmware file, if
# firmware upload is needed by the scanner
firmware /usr/local/snape40.bin

# If not automatically found you may manually specify a device name.

# For USB scanners also specify bus=usb, e.g.
/dev/usb/scanner0 bus=usb

# For SCSI scanners specify the generic device, e.g. /dev/sg0 on Linux.
# /dev/sg0

#---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# No changes should be necessary below this line
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------

#-------------------------- SCSI scanners ----------------------------------
# These SCSI devices will be probed automatically
scsi AGFA * Scanner
scsi COLOR * Scanner
scsi Color * Scanner
scsi ACERPERI * Scanner

#--------------------------- USB scanners -----------------------------------
# These USB devices will be probed automatically
# (This will currently work only on Linux)

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 310U
usb 0x04a5 0x1a20
usb 0x04a5 0x1a26

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 320U
usb 0x04a5 0x2022

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 620U / 620UT
usb 0x04a5 0x1a2a
usb 0x04a5 0x2040

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 640U
usb 0x04a5 0x2060

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 640BU
usb 0x04a5 0x207e

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 640BT
usb 0x04a5 0x20be

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 1240U
usb 0x04a5 0x20c0

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 3300 / 4300
usb 0x04a5 0x20b0

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 4300
usb 0x04a5 0x20de

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 5000
usb 0x04a5 0x20fc

# Benq/Acer/Vuego 5300
usb 0x04a5 0x20fe

# Agfa 1236U
usb 0x06bd 0x0002

# Agfa 1212U
usb 0x06bd 0x0001
usb 0x06bd 0x2061

# Agfa Snapscan e10
usb 0x06bd 0x2093

# Agfa Snapscan e20
usb 0x06bd 0x2091

# Agfa Snapscan e25
usb 0x06bd 0x2095

# Agfa Snapscan e26
usb 0x06bd 0x2097

# Agfa Snapscan e40
usb 0x06bd 0x208d

# Agfa Snapscan e42
usb 0x06bd 0x20ff

# Agfa Snapscan e50
usb 0x06bd 0x208f

# Agfa Snapscan e52
usb 0x06bd 0x20fd

# Epson Perfection 660
usb 0x04b8 0x0114

# Epson Perfection 1670
usb 0x04b8 0x011f

# Epson Perfection 2480
usb 0x04b8 0x0121

You need to extract the file snape40.bin from your drivers disk (in the Windows section) or get my copy from this site: snape40.bin.

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