Ongoing problems connecting a Canon CanoScan 4400F scanner to Linux Mint

This post is about the experiences I've had connecting a Canon CanoScan 4400F scanner to various computers, primarily focusing on my current laptop which, as of the time of first writing this post, ran Linux Mint 19 "Tara" MATE along with Microsoft Windows 10. For context, I am hoping to scan some of my personal & work notebooks for personal archival. I figured that this scanner, which I've had for a long time, does a good job at rendering images, even though it is quite old & slow, so I should continue using it for as long as it continues to work.

I used to use this scanner regularly with my previous laptop, which is an ASUS U30Jc and, when I last ran it regularly, ran Linux Mint 18.3 "Sylvia" along with Microsoft Windows 7; initially when I connected the scanner to the old laptop (a few years ago), it didn't work with Linux Mint out-of-the-box, so I decided to do all scans in Microsoft Windows and then transfer files between partitions later. I stopped using that laptop approximately 2 years ago, and since then until the beginning of this month, it just sat in a box gathering dust. At the beginning of this month, desirous of using this scanner again for the aforementioned purposes, I brought out the old laptop & scanner, but found out that in the intervening 2 years, the damage to the laptop's screen & hinge had worsened, the battery had completely died due to no charging in that time, and the laptop (on either OS) would randomly overheat & shut off. At this point, I now believe that old laptop should be junked.

My current laptop is an ASUS ZenBook UX331UN. I didn't think the scanner would work with it, because it uses USB 1.1, and I remember having trouble getting this laptop to read an older USB device. Just for the heck of it, I decided to connect the scanner to see what happens. Just as with my old laptop, in Linux Mint, the Simple Scan application didn't find any connected scanners. However, I had the idea to run the command "sudo simple-scan" from the terminal. That showed that the scanner was in fact being recognized, so this was probably a permission problem; I also realized that the earlier problem with another old USB device was specific to that device and not a general issue with this laptop reading any older USB device. That said, when I tried to scan a document, I got a window showing the error "Failed to scan: Unable to connect to scanner". Follow the jump to see more.

Second Laptop: ASUS ZenBook UX331UN

I was hoping that a post from when I got my first laptop, an ASUS U30JC, would provide a template for how to review my new, second laptop. Sadly, that post was from over 8 years ago, when this blog was just a year old, I had not yet started college, and my writing was much worse. With that in mind, I now provide a review of my new laptop; this review will be by no means a thorough review of hardware, but will be more of a summary of my experiences installing Linux on it and using it for around a month.

A few months ago, I noticed that part of the plastic frame around the screen of my old laptop, along with the hinge below it, had partially detached. A little over a month ago, that detachment had become much more noticeable, to the point of becoming a liability for me: the laptop would no longer close properly (without me risking breaking it altogether), so I would not be able to take it anywhere outside. Up until that point, I had experienced no major hardware issues with that laptop, and only minor issues such as the optical drive occasionally being unresponsive; I could tell that it was struggling a little more with newer software, but on the whole, it was performing quite well, so while I had from time to time over the last couple of years been looking casually into replacing it, this sudden development forced the issue. Given my disability, I wanted something a bit more lightweight, because my old laptop was 4.5 pounds, which was a bit heavy for me; that said, I still wanted something that would offer a reasonable amount of computational power, and while I didn't anticipate requiring a high-performance graphics card for gaming as I am not a serious gamer, I figured there may be some casual games as well as the possibility of getting into GPU programming for my work for which I may want a reasonable dedicated graphics card. Luckily, I found the ASUS ZenBook UX331UN, which seemed on paper to fit the bill on all counts, and I found only a few left in stock online for a reasonable price (just over $1000), so I went ahead and bought one. Follow the jump to read more.

Featured Comments: Week of 2018 July 8

There was one post that got two comments (from the same commenter) this past week, so I'll repost both of those.

Review: Linux Mint 19 "Tara" MATE + Xfce + Cinnamon

An anonymous reader said, "Mate has been the best since it replaced gnome2. It scales better across different computers and has many parts that just work. One minor thing is to select the themes only in each of their parts. Controls/panel, window boarder and icons mainly. And to not use vetted parts. But there's so much to choose from and it's just looks. Just about anyway you want", later adding, "I meant don't use broken themes. That's all." (I have since replied with a comment clarifying all of those points.)

Thanks to that reader for those comments. I don't really have any other posts planned for the rest of this month, but I do hope to have a book review or something else for next month. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Linux Mint 19 "Tara" MATE + Xfce + Cinnamon

It has been some time since I last reviewed a Linux distribution. That is in large part because I've found that the Linux distribution landscape is not as dynamic as it once was, with fewer new distributions vying for market share, while older established distributions have simply continued to exist and develop. As a result, unless you readers have particular suggestions for distributions that I should review (as long as it can be done via a live USB) or a distribution particularly catches my eye, I will likely be sticking to reviewing Linux Mint each time a new release comes out, until and unless Linux Mint declines in quality so much that I need to start looking for new distributions.

MATE: Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu

This time, I'm reviewing the latest edition of Linux Mint, focusing on MATE to test the distribution and its applications as a whole, while more briefly touching upon the DE-specific experiences of Xfce and Cinnamon. I used the USB Image Writer tool on my installation of Linux Mint 18.2 "Sonya" MATE to create the live USB system; based on the language used (e.g. "destroying" all data on the USB drive), I suspect this is just a nice graphical front-end to the "dd" command. Follow the jump to see what it's like; although 32-bit versions are available, I consistently tested the 64-bit versions.

Revisited: Linux Mint 18.3 "Sylvia" KDE

Main screen + KDE Main Menu

Long-time readers of the Linux distribution reviews on this blog know that I am a fan of Linux Mint, but I have had somewhat mixed experiences with KDE. When I've reviewed a new release of Linux Mint, I have occasionally reviewed its KDE edition in addition to its GNOME/MATE/Cinnamon and Xfce editions, generally finding that the KDE edition has too many minor bugs and not enough compelling features compared to the more mainstream editions. Apparently the Linux Mint developers feel similarly, as this is the last release of a KDE edition for Linux Mint; henceforth, they are only releasing MATE, Cinnamon, and Xfce editions for a tighter focus on GTK-based DEs and applications. With that in mind, I figured it was worth reviewing a KDE edition of Linux Mint one final time. I tested it on a live USB system made with the "dd" command. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Long-Term Review: Linux Mint 18.2 "Sonya" MATE

Installed System: Main Screen + Xed

A little over two weeks ago, I made the decision on what Linux distribution to install and use full-time on my personal laptop. I chose Linux Mint 18.2 "Sonya" MATE, because I felt that while it could do a bit better for total newbies in terms of usability (as some usability features have regressed since a couple of years ago), it has been a reliable and known quantity for me, and I figured that if I could generally use the live session without much hassle, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch (no pun intended) to imagine that the installed session would likely be workable. As I've covered most of the experiences of installing and using programs and getting around the desktop in my review of the live session, this post will be relatively short, covering only the salient points of the installation and some of the changes I made after the installation. Follow the jump to see more.

Featured Comments: Week of 2017 July 9

I meant to write and post this yesterday, as I typically do this on Sundays. However, I was rather tired yesterday and forgot about it until today. Anyway, this past week, there were two posts that got comments, so I'll post four selected comments from one, and the single comment from the other.

Review: Debian 9 "Stretch" MATE

Reader Isaac Ji Kuo said, "Sluggishness is due to being a USB install. USB is far slower than a hard drive. LiveCD install partially compensates for this by using file system compression, but this still inevitably means sluggish delays due to decompression time. If you want to just see whether or not Debian is functional, a LiveCD is good. If you want to have some idea of its performance for a hard drive install, LiveCD will give you no idea. Flash works in Debian 9. I don't know precisely how it works, but every web site I've tried works with both Firefox and Google Chrome (normally I use Google Chrome, but it's not available in 32 bit so I was forced to try Firefox to use Netflix on my 32 bit computers). Anyway, I think it has to do with the PepperFlashPlayer." (Most of the comments were along these lines, with varying degrees of detail and civility.)
An anonymous commenter had this to say: "Testing live image from USB/DVD and complaining about sluggish delays is bit silly. Unless you test some Puppy/Puppy like distro that loads in ram. Debian live images are used for only one purpose, to see what it can offer with different desktop environments. It is not even recommended to install from those live images, even if that option exists. As for flash, no it does not work out of the box with Debian. And package for flash in Debian is unusable, its maintainer is missing in action. On google chrome flash comes integrated with browser. For Firefox it can be installed easily by downloading it from adobe site, unpacking it and moving libflashplayer.so to the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/. Downside of that is that you must manually repeat procedure whenever adobe updates flash."
Reader CFWhitman shared, "In my experience Debian is faster in regular use than any version of Ubuntu or Mint. When you have lots of resources, it's just as fast as Lubuntu or LXDE. When you start to run short, it tends to be faster, at least as long as you are running the same desktop environment. When I have hardware that's too weak for even Lubuntu to run well on it, I switch to Debian. I run Debian 9 on a ten year old netbook with an Atom N270 32 bit processor and 1 GB of RAM. If you had problems with speed I have a lot of trouble believing it's a problem with Debian 9. Your USB drive would seem a more likely culprit."
Another anonymous commenter had the following tips: "Other distributions optimise for the liveCD demo, but Debian optimises for long-term use ;-) For a Debian distribution that uses the Mate Desktop and is optimised for liveCD use I'd give Parrot Security OS a try. And yes, I will read your review! That said, I'm about ready give give up on reading "reviews" that are in effect clickbait...eg: just a liveCD demo that is not of what it's like to use for a week or two. LiveCD/USB/etc should be in the title of the page imho. To be fair, sometimes the installed system can be slower than the live one due to background processes like file indexing daemons. ex: Nepomuk and aKonadi. How a distribution configures such things in an actual installation says more about the experience of using it and more about the values of the project than any liveCD."

Review: Linux Mint 18.2 "Sonya" MATE

Reader Steve said, "Please give Debian the benefit of the doubt. It has a huge ecosystem and is ported to dozens of different architectures and envirionments. The Debian developers and maintainers do an amazing job of keeping the various versions to have the same look and feel as much as possible. I used to think that two years was an awfully long time to prepare a new version, until I researched the Debian web sites to see what had to be done." (This was more in response to the previous review, as I had referenced it in this review.)

Thanks to all of those people for those comments. I don't have anything particularly planned for this week. However, I did end up installing Linux Mint 18.2 "Sonya" MATE on my laptop's hard drive, and have been using it for over a week now. Given that, I'll probably have a short post with some notes about installing and using it next week. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Linux Mint 18.2 "Sonya" MATE

Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu

The quest for a replacement Linux distribution for Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce continues. With this post comes a review of the latest MATE edition of Linux Mint. Especially for regular readers of this blog, Linux Mint needs no introduction. I will just say that with the latest point release, it seems like the developers have put more polish into the distribution, including their new set of "X-apps" meant to work across MATE, Cinnamon, Xfce, and GNOME, avoiding the pitfalls of more DE-specific applications. I want to see what has changed since my last review and to see whether this would be suitable for installation and daily use on my laptop. To that end, I made a live USB system (again, on my new SanDisk Cruzer USB flash drive) using the "dd" command. Follow the jump to see what it's like. Note that I'll frequently reference that previous review, noting only changes and overall important points as needed.

Featured Comments: Week of 2016 September 18

There was one post this past week, and it got one comment, so I'll repost that here.

Revisited: Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" KDE + Xfce

An anonymous reader said, "Great review, as always. Hey, if you're in the mood for experimentation give "Space FM" file manager a try. It's very powerful and extensible, it might give you a good experience. Keep up the good work."

Thanks to that reader for that comment; SpaceFM looks interesting enough that I'd be happy to review it in the near future. Additionally, I will have a very exciting research related post either next week or the week after, so stay tuned for that. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Revisited: Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" KDE + Xfce

The KDE and Xfce editions of Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" recently came out. Over a month ago, I had reviewed the MATE edition, and while I was generally happy with how it worked, there were a handful of minor usability issues and other niggles that detracted from the experience enough that I couldn't recommend that a newbie install it by him/herself. Given that, I wanted to see if maybe the KDE or Xfce editions could make up for the deficiencies that I observed in the MATE edition. Follow the jump to see what each is like. Given that the main base of Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" is common to all of these editions, I'm not going to spend too much time rehashing things like application installation for their own sake; instead, these reviews will be shorter, and will focus on the differences relative to the MATE edition.

Featured Comments: Week of 2016 July 31

There was one post this past week that got two comments, so I'll repost both of those.

Review: Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" MATE

An anonymous reader said, "The scrollbar-jumping decision is a mind-numbinglingy stupid UI decision. I'd love to know why the GTK-3 Firefox people thought it was such a good idea (along with removing the up/down arrows on scrollbars). It smacks of the kind of totalitarian UI thinking that drove GNOME 3. It IS fixable by adding a line or two to .config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini (INI??? This isn't windows for god's sake...), but it should never have come to that."

Commenter DarkDuck had a similar review to share: "Yet another "not-so-nice" review of Mint 18. http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2016/07/linux-mint-18-cinnamon-pity-pity-pity.html".

Thanks to both of those people for commenting. Given that I'm essentially posting only once a month now, I don't anticipate having much to post for the rest of this month (unless I happen to think of something). That said, I do intend to have at least one Linux distribution review out by next month. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" MATE

My laptop is getting old, and Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce will only be supported for one more year. Given this, I figured it might be time to seriously start looking into newer distributions for upgrade (even if I don't actually upgrade right away). Linux Mint just released its latest version, giving me all the more reason to review it.

Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu

The biggest change (as far as I can see) is that multimedia plugins and codecs are no longer included by default. From what I understand, this was done not due to any legal issue, but because maintaining separate installable/live bootable ISO images with and without codecs was becoming costly in terms of time and effort. Instead, the distribution provides alternative ways to install those plugins and codecs in the live and installed system. There are of course smaller updates to the distribution, including new applications and a new interface theme. (Also, on a much more minor note, although the codename still ends in an "a"/"ah" sound, this is the first Ubuntu-based release whose codename doesn't actually end in the letter "a".)

I tested this on a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Review: Linux Mint Debian 2 "Betsy" MATE

Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu

It has been over a year since I've reviewed Debian-based Linux Mint. Since then, some major changes have occurred. The most notable is that Debian-based Linux Mint is no longer a rolling-release distribution but is largely based on the upcoming stable release of Debian (version 8 "Jessie"), though it should continue to get updates for major applications like Mozilla Firefox. Given its shift to a new stable base, I figured it would be time for another review. I checked out the MATE 64-bit edition (due to certain issues with the 32-bit version not being able to detect multiple processor cores) on a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like. As with the previous review, I am linking to it and only highlighting changes.

Review: Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Xfce

Main Screen + Whisker Menu

Recently, the Xfce edition of Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" was released. It and the MATE edition are notable in featuring...Compiz! This really caught my eye, so I wanted to review it. There are several other changes too, so I figured that it would be worthwhile to review the Xfce edition rather than the MATE edition, given that I already tried the MATE edition of Linux Mint 17 "Qiana" not too long ago. Note that Ubuntu-based Linux Mint is sticking only to LTS releases, so a major release will roughly coincide (lagging by a month or so) with the Ubuntu LTS release, and then decimal point releases will be put out every 6 months or so and be given a new code name while still sticking with the last LTS release as its base. As far as this review goes, I tried this as usual as a live USB system made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2014 July 27

This post is two days late because I was out of town until yesterday. There was one post last week that got a few comments, so I'll repost all of those.

Review: Linux Mint 17 "Qiana" MATE

Reader Etescartz said, "What is up with the screen turning black while I'm watching a movie in full screen?!!! It's killing me that such simple things are so damn annoying on linux. I had caffeine installed and configured as latest guides instruct.. I even had the screensaver removed . I tried scripts running on crontab to budge the mouse just so I cand get through a 30 min tv show without the screen blacking out... It's killing my mood to even boot linux. (I'm dualbooting with "that other OS" so I can play Borderlands 2 on it)"
An anonymous commenter had this response: "https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/mint-mate-first Linux Mint 17 Mate has some aggresive power-saving features enabled by default, such as a short suspend/hibernate time, also you could turn up, (or disable), the standby timeout on your display, disks, ... BTW, why would you remove the 'Screensaver'?, you should have just simply disabled it, in the the 'Control Center' settings These settings, and many more, are ALL in the 'Control Center' [...]"
Another anonymous reader had this bit of support: "Thanks Prashanth, (for the tip on Redshift).  A couple of my friends are recent XP refugee's. I spent a bit-o-time looking around for the best drop-in replacement for their home PC's, and this 'Mate' edition fits the bill perfectly for them. -as you mentioned: ALL the necessary codecs, extra lib32 libraies, are already there, just add skype, frostwire,.... The only caveat was AdobeReader, googletalk-plugin, and teamviewer which I installed for them, via the respective '.deb' sites. Now, all I hear is how much faster Mate is, than XP ever was.  -I luv a good ending. :)"

Thanks to all those who commented on that post. This week, I may have a review out and maybe one other post, but depending on what work I need to get done, those may have to wait until next week. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Linux Mint 17 "Qiana" MATE

Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu

I've been out of the country for 2.5 weeks, explaining the lack of posts in that time. Before that, I was busy trying to finish a rough draft of a paper outlining the work I did at my UROP before graduation. Now that I'm back and tired from jetlag, I have a little more time to do a review like this, which I wanted to do in June itself.

I'm skipping most further introduction because none is needed for Linux Mint here. All I'll say is that there is no "LTS" label on this post because now all Ubuntu-based Linux Mint releases are based on the LTS releases, starting with this one; this is a move that I support because it should give more credence to the idea that Linux Mint is a stable system that newbies can comfortably use. I reviewed this as a live USB system made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Review: Linux Mint MATE 201403

Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu

It's been a while since I've done a review. In fact, it's been a while since I've posted in any form, because this semester has turned out to be a lot busier than I anticipated. It likely will remain so until it ends; the only reason why I can post a review right now is because of spring break, and even that has been busy for me. Anyway, I initially wanted to do a review of Frugalware because it looked intriguing, but I couldn't get the live USB to work. I'm reviewing this (which I had planned for later) instead. If you've passed by this blog, you've probably already seen my thoughts on Linux Mint, so I'll skip the introduction. I tried this updated ISO file as a live USB made with MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what it's like. There isn't too much that has changed since last year, so I will simply link the review from then, point out any changes, and put out any other thoughts that occur to me about this.

Featured Comments: Week of 2014 January 26

There were two posts this past week that got a comment each, so I'll repost both of those.

Revisited: Linux Mint 16 "Petra" KDE + Xfce

An anonymous reader had this vote of support: "welcome back prashanth ji.............." [following the takedown of this blog for a large portion of the month of 2014 January].

Review: Pinguy OS 13.10 Beta 3

Another anonymous commenter suggested, "Elementary OS, with all the stability you need. :)"

Thanks to both of those people for leaving those comments. This coming week, I will have a post about the semester ahead. After that, the semester will start and will certainly become busy, so I likely will drop the frequency of posts after that, as I have done in past semesters. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Revisited: Linux Mint 16 "Petra" KDE + Xfce

KDE: Main Screen + KDE Kickoff Menu

Aaaaaand...we're back! This blog had been taken down for about 2.5 weeks and didn't come back up until late last week. Because of that, I couldn't make use of the extra time I have during IAP to post any of the reviews or other stuff that I wanted to do. Now I have to sort of make up for lost time and do & post those things. That starts with a review of the latest KDE and Xfce editions of Linux Mint. I tested both as live USB systems each made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what each is like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2013 December 15

There was one post this past week that got a few comments, so I'll repost all of those.

Review: Linux Mint 16 "Petra" Cinnamon + MATE

Reader Michael Freeman said, "Compiz doesn't work in Petra? It works fine in Maya LTS with MATE 1.6. What version of Compiz comes with Petra? Do you have all the needed packages installed?"
An anonymous commenter had this to say: "I must say that I am surprised by your assessment of Cinnamon 2.0. I have Petra installed and have been using it as my daily driver since the day it was released. I find it to be incredibly stable and not at all laggy, but rather snappy. Of course, everyone's hardware is different. Give it a go in a VM if you have the resources, you may find you like it. Cheers!"
Another anonymous reader followed up on the first comment: "Compiz worked fine for me on petra 32bit. First of all u have to install all the packages needed. Then you have to set an autostart entry like 'cinnamon --replace' and change the default desktop manager from 'marco' to 'compiz' using the dconf editor. If you're using live session without a persistance file to save settings, you have to install and run it manually every time you boot. check here - http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1298".

Thanks to all those who commented on that post. I'm at home for break now, but I don't have any posts particularly planned. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!