Another Ubuntu post... and Staples

So our almost decade-year old fax machine finally died... my son and I went into Staples today to buy another one.

Since I'm using Ubuntu, I wanted to find one that will work; it is well known that Epson generally makes Linux-friendly devices, so I settled in a CX9400Fax 4-in-1. While I don't need the printer, having a scanner that actually works with Ubuntu would be nice, and a low volume copier is also pretty neat. It cost $140 after taxes before rebates.

Now I hate rebates like everyone else, but I didn't realize how easy Staples had made it to claim one. You go to their website, click on rebate center, put all the info online, and you're on your way. No more messy cutting of UPC's, filling out hand written forms and all that hoopla. Way to go, Staples... how about abolishing them entirely as the next logical step?

Anyway, getting the Epson up and running was simple - simpler than in Windows in fact, since I didn't have to install anything. Like many other devices, as soon as I hooked this guy into my laptop's USB port, it was recognized and installed.

Except, that is, for the scanner. Xsane - the image scanner that comes preinstalled with Ubuntu - simply would not recognize the Epson.

I went into a 2-hour ordeal of trying to figure out how to get it done. Sane claimed to support the scanner, so it had to be possible, but I just couldn't do it; I tried installing various packages, building others, doing this and that, and failing miserably. My frustration level reached record highs.

Then I stopped.

I took a deep breath.

I looked again. This isn't Windows; messing around with the registry wasn't going to help me, and I am not smart enough to understand what I'm doing in the Linux equivalent. What was I doing wrong in my approach?

Ah. I was intimidated by the packaging of the installation backend necessary for this device. I found the stuff on the Avasys page, but they hadn't compiled one for Ubuntu yet. I picked "other/other" for the OS, and came up with two options: the tarball, and the rpm.

Since I "knew" that an rpm is "not for Ubuntu", because it's Debian-based and not Redhat-based, I didn't pick it. All my messing around was done with the tarball.

Have you ever heard the phrase "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing"?

It was at this point that I remembered there was a way to convert an rpm (redhat package) to a deb (debian package). I looked it up. Yes! there it was - simply run "alien [name of package] ", and it will perform the conversion.

Now I had the debian-ready package. Running it was as simple as "dpkg -i [name of package]". 20 seconds later my scanner was working seamlessly.

And I was feeling quite embarrassed.