WARNING Unless you have allready a scanner installed and working, it is recommended to uninstall any SANE backend version installed on your system. Remove only the sane-backend package (and libsane if exists), but not sane-frontends. This will avoid many problems: conflicting installs, mutiple configuration file, ...

unpack SANE package

         You have to choose where to unpack the SANE sources, the '/usr/src' directory might be a good place. Once you have cd to the directory you choose, you can unpack all by the following command line:

tar xvzf sane-backends-1.0.18.tar.gz

patch it

         First cd to the new sane-backends-1.0.18 directory. Then you can patch the sources with the following command:

zcat umax1220p-6.3.gz | patch -p1

         Or, if you have already unzip the patch (Netscape does unzipping on download by default), do:

patch <umax1220p-6.3 -p1

compile it

         You can now compile the SANE package as explained in its documentation. In short, doing:

./configure --enable-parport-directio --sysconfdir=/etc --prefix=/usr
make
make install
ldconfig

        should be enough. Remember to do it as root if you want to install it system wide.

If your scanner is the only device that make use of SANE backends, you can use 'make force-install' which will override any previous install.

        The option '--enable-parport-directio' builds in direct hardware access for parport operations. You have to specify it unless you intend to use only the 'ppdev' character device on linux, or '/dev/ppi0' on *BSD.

        The option '--sysconfdir=/etc' is optional and tells to install the configuration files in '/etc/sane.d', which is the most common location used by linux distributions.

        The option '--prefix=/usr' is optional and tells to install the libraries and binaries under '/usr/lib' and '/usr/lbin', which is the setting most commonly used by linux distributions.

        When the backend uses direct parport I/O, binaries using it have to be run as root, or with the suid bit set. Under linux, you may avoid this by installing (if it isn't allready done) the 'ppdev' character device. Under OS/2, you have to set IOPL to YES in config.sys .

        Your SANE backend should be installed. You also have a command line test tool in the 'tools' subdirectory.
 

        *NOTE*: umax_pp backend is commented out in 'dll.conf' in standard SANE install. Remove the '#' sign at the beginning of the line so that it is activated.
 

configure it

         The backend only works with the parallel port mode set ot EPP or ECP/EPP. But not in PS/2 or SPP mode. UMAX support site recommends that the port should be set to EPP 1.7 . So check it in your BIOS settings.

         You may keep ECP+EPP in BIOS. 'ppdev' is a stock kernel feature for 2.4/2.6 versions, but 2.2 needs a patch. Kernels prior to 2.4.5 don't have the PP_FAST_READ flag, which leads to very poor tranfer rates when scanning at 600 or 1200 dpi. For maximum performance, you might consider using a 2.4.5 or higher kernel.

         You have to the know address of your parallel port. If you don't know it, you should look into system messages with 'dmesg', you'll have lines such as:

...........................
parport0: PC-style at 0x378, irq 7 [PCSPP,TRISTATE,EPP]
parport0: cpp_mux: aa55f00f52ad51(86)
parport0: Found 4 daisy-chained devices
lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).
............................
 

         Or you look into '/proc/parport/0/hardware' (linux 2.2) :

base:   0x378
irq:    7
dma:    3
modes:  SPP,PS2,EPP

user:/proc/sys/dev/parport/parport0>cat base-addr
888 1912
Then turn the first number into hexadecimal (888 => 0x378)

         You can now change the entry 'port 0x378' to match your port address, in umax_pp.conf which has been installed in '/etc/sane.d/' . Or if you don't have any other scanner (no USB or SCSI) type 'make force-install' which forces installation of configuration files tuned for the umax_pp backend using ppdev.

         If you don't plan to use ppdev character device an not direct hardware access, you'll have to change the 'port' parameter from 'port /dev/parport0' to the address of the parallel port.

        Time to test ....