Using a Canon LiDE 110 flatbed scanner with Centos 6

By Frank Cox

(January 16, 2012)

At the time of this writing, January 16, 2012, the current version of sane that comes with Centos 6 is SANE-BACKENDS-1.0.21-3.EL6.X86_64. This is a problem if you have a Canon LiDE 110 flatbed scanner, because that scanner isn't supported until SANE-BACKENDS-1.0.22. Therefore, when you plug a Canon LiDE 110 flatbed scanner into your Centos 6 box and run scanimage -L, you get this output:

No scanners were identified. If you were expecting something different, check that the scanner is plugged in, turned on and detected by the sane-find-scanner tool (if appropriate). Please read the documentation which came with this software (README, FAQ, manpages).

Luckily, SANE-BACKENDS-1.0.22 is available as an update to Fedora 16, and it supports the Canon LiDE 110 flatbed scanner.

It isn't too difficult to replace the sane-backends version that comes Centos 6 with this updated version from Fedora 16.

I have re-compiled SANE-BACKENDS-1.0.22-6.FC16.SRC.RPM for Centos 6/x86_64.

Download sane-backends-1.0.22-6.el6.x86_64.rpm

Download sane-backends-drivers-cameras-1.0.22-6.el6.x86_64.rpm

Download sane-backends-drivers-scanners-1.0.22-6.el6.x86_64.rpm

Download sane-backends-libs-1.0.22-6.el6.x86_64.rpm

You can also download SANE-BACKENDS-1.0.22-6.FC16.SRC.RPM from this webpage but you will need that only if you want to compile your own SANE-BACKENDS-1.0.22.

Download sane-backends-1.0.22-6.fc16.src.rpm

After downloading the above files you can install them on your Centos 6 machine using this command: rpm -U sane-backends-*.rpm

That's all there is to it. After installing SANE-BACKENDS-1.0.22, when you run scanimage -L you will see this output:

device `genesys:libusb:001:010' is a Canon LiDE 110 flatbed scanner

Don't worry if the device number is different; as long as it says that it can see your scanner, it's working.

If you find that scanimage -L sees the scanner when you run the command as root but not when you run the command as a user, then unplug the scanner from your computer and plug it back in. There is a udev rule that allows your scanner to be seen by the user but it's not activated only when you plug the scanner in; therefore if you plugged your scanner in before updating to SANE-BACKENDS-1.0.22 as described in this article, only the root user can use the scanner until you either reboot your computer or unplug the scanner and plug it back in again.

Other articles written by Frank Cox can be found here.

Frank Cox owns and operates the Melville Theatre in Melville, Saskatchewan, Canada, and has been playing with computers for over 30 years.

January 16, 2012