Don't throw away your old Scanner (CanoScan LiDE 80)

Tips, Tricks and Tutorials Tried & Tested
#1

I have an old scanner, the CanoScan LiDE 80, that stayed for years (maybe a decade) in my cabinet (a cabinet with old computer stuff).
This scanner was working when I was on Windows XP / Vista 32 bit, but when I switched to Apple in 2010-11 (64 bit) it didn’t work anymore, and Canon never put out a driver for 64 bit OS.

Recently my wife cleans up the cabinet and asks me if we can throw the scanner (it’s her way to tell me that we need a scanner).
I told her yes as it does not work with modern operating systems.

Then, a thought crossed my mind to try it to be sure not to have any regrets (I am on Ubuntu-MATE 16.04.3 LTS).

So with no hopes, I plug it into the computer via USB, no light, no noise, nothing happens.
I go to Applications/Graphics/Simple Scan, the software open and I click on the button “Scan”…
Bzzzz, squzz…tzzz, zzzzzzzzzzz… It’s Working!!
Straight out of the box, it Scans as it always has scanned!

We do now have a working Scanner at home!
So if you have an old CanoScan LiDE 80 don’t throw it away, it works straight out of the box on |Ubuntu-MATE 16.04.3 LTS (Thanks to the team of UM)

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#2

The CanoScan LiDE 20 also works fine with UM 17.10

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#3

Things like this is one of many reasons why I prefer Linux to any other operating system.

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#4

I’ve got a similar story featuring a Mustek 1200UB. There’s more or less no chance of getting it working on anything newer than XP over on the Windows side, but with any Linux distro I just plug it in, open Simple Scan and they’re off!

It’s a really good scanner too… much better than a far newer Cannon scanner-printer combo I have sitting in the back room.

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#5

Linux suport for scanners is great when it works, some can be fixed by editing some USB lib config files (I’ve long since forgotten what I did) but some times the new versions break things too.

I’ve a Canon FS4000 slide/negative sanner and its been long dead on Windows and no native support in Linux, but the commercial VueScan for Linux supports it, but 16.04 broke it again. My solution was to run the 12.04 Linux in Virtualbox. I also keep a Windows2000 virtualbox VM to run a Canon D2400 that will never work on Linux and was was a crap shoot on XP.

I don’t use these very often but its nice that I can keep them working for when I do need occasionally them.

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#6

The Canoscan LiDE 200 works perfectly, I’ve been using it for years now to scan all by business invoices on my Ubuntu MATE 16.04 workstation.

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#7

If you want to run it on the Mac again, try VueScan from Ed Hamrick www.hamrick.com My old Canon LIDE 20 works perfectly still. Or you can stick with Ubuntu :slight_smile:

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#8

I have a UMax Astra 2200U USB flatbed scanner that I bought aeons ago. I picked that scanner because it had a backlight in the cover to allow scanning transparencies and negatives (a useful bonus). It came with drivers for Windows 98, which I was running at the time, and they could be made to work with Windows 2000. It was never supported under XP and beyond. It became a dead duck that’s sitting in my closet.

Since then, I acquired a photo scanner to address that particular need. This scanner handles photos up to 5x7, 35mm transparencies, and 35mm negatives. It won’t scan 110 and 126 format negatives though, and I have a lot of those.

My two options are to generate carriages (I don’t own a 3D printer or know anyone who does and definitely don’t know how to design a template for one), or getting the scanner and its backlight to work in Linux. This thread has me wondering if the latter is possible…

Anyone know? Anyone able to try? I have no idea how to go about it…

#9

I too have found that my ageing Canoscan works with the latest Ubuntu-based distros but only on kit that uses BIOS rather than UEFI. Even if the UEFI is in Legacy mode the OS seems unable to see the device in a functional way even when it can identify it in a lsusb command.
It would be good to know whether other people can corroborate this and if so might explain some of the problems others are reporting in this thread.

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