open source and other geekery

The Epson Perfection V600 is a great high-resolution scanner, and I had no problems getting it to work with Ubuntu Karmic. It’s a great scanner and I’ve really been satisfied with it under Ubuntu.

Epson Perfection V600

Epson Perfection V600 with XSANE

The V600 doesn’t work right out of the box, but it’s easy to set up. Just download and install ImageScan, a complete scanning program. It also installs drivers that lets you use SANE, both the from the XSANE GUI and from the command line.

The ImageScan interface

ImageScan is a clean and easy-to-use program, and so far I actually prefer it to the cluttered XSANE interface. The V600 seems to be fully operational, and I was able to scan at resolutions of up to 6400dpi. The only caveat is that when scanning at high resolutions, you are limited to a much smaller scanning area. You may need to do several smaller scans and then assemble the images afterwards.

Amazon.com and Newegg both currently have the V600 for around $200.

Epson Perfection V600