Ok folks, I'm a noobie so please go easy on me??? Know that I would not be posting this question without first doing the research first, as you will see below.I am using the Brother MFC-J491DW Wi-FI printer/scanner.
I have Ubuntu 21.10 Impish distro and to accomplish my task, reading told me to download and install XSane (ver. 0.999) and quiteinsaneplugin-0.3. All the pages I read tell me to merely "copy the (plugin) files" to GIMP's plug-ins folder and it should work now.
Firstly, which files? quiteinsanegimpplugin comes with three different layers of files (Admin/quiteinsanegimpplugin and 19 loose files not in a folder. One of those files in the README file which says "Please see quiteinsanegimpplugin/docs/en/index.html" which no longer exists.)
Secondly, copy them to where? GIMP 2.10.24 has no obvious Plug-ins folder that I can find after much research online (Why doesn't the GIMP User Manual have a "Search" function? Obviously, it's just not practical to have to wade through hundreds of pages to find a simple search term.).
Quote:ln -s /usr/local/bin/xsane ~/.gimp-1.2/plug-ins/
You can start xsane from the GIMP menu File/Acquire.
It talks about "creating a symbolic link" to a USR/local/bin/xsane ~/. .gimp/plug-ins/ which, though I haven't yet learned how to do but can look it up if absolutely necessary to accomplish the task. However...
Folks, I am a photographer and graphic artist. Do I really need to be a computer programmer too to accomplish what should be a simple task? Is there truly any easier way to just get GIMP to see my scanner. XSane does.
Quote:Do I really need to be a computer programmer too to accomplish what should be a simple task?
Certainly not the same as Windows-click-n-wish. I use kubuntu 20.04 / Gimp 2.10.30 / Brother MFC-J825DW / wireless connection so there is some relevance here.
I am about ready to pack in for the day, so until next time, a couple of things.
The location of the Gimp 2.10 user profile is ~/.config/GIMP/2.10/ (~ = your home directory) providing it is a regular Gimp install. It is different if you have a flatpak or a snap installation. Whatever you have you can check using in Gimp Edit -> Preferences -> Folders where the paths are shown as:
If the path is not similar, then you have a flatpak or a snap Gimp version. These are sandboxed and xsane does not work. Let us know what you have and maybe / maybe-not able to help.
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Back to the scanner. You installed the drivers using the Brother debian packages ? Not 100% straight forward, also depends if you use a wireless connection or USB
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With SANE installed and XSANE installed running from a terminal do you get this
Even if xsane does not find the scanner you should get that showing xsane works.
Installing iscan seems to have added /usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/iscan as a link to ../../../../bin/iscan (ie, relative soft link to /usr/bin/iscan).
In practice I no longer run this Gimp version, so I added a soft link to /usr/bin/iscan in the plug-ins folder of the version I use (self-compiled), and this works too.
02-13-2022, 05:47 PM (This post was last modified: 02-13-2022, 05:49 PM by rich2005.)
xsane is the same. The xsane binary, which can run on its own, installs in /usr/bin and puts a link into /usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/
I also have a Gimp appimage which goes nowhere near /usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/ so I add my own link into the appimage plugins folder.
The OP is not too certain about creating a hard link. It is efficient but not vital. You can copy the whole xsane binary to the Gimp user plugins folder. Wonder if OP is using a flatpak ?
If you use a soft link, what really counts is the object at the end of the soft link, so if the flatpak code cannot accss /usr/bin/xsane a soft link won't help.
Not sure though that a hard link is going to work much better, and in any case there are restrictions: same file system and if you update the object in /usr/bin the hard link remains pointing to the old one.
Yes, I was looking at the original post where hard link was mentioned.
I have no problems with the Gimp appimage using a sym link, also the appimage can access the linux library files. The xsane plugin not going to work with a flatpak (and presumably a snap) since the xsane binary has libsane 1 as a dependency and that in turn has many more.
I suppose for it to work, the devs need to make a flatpak xsane plugin package that incorporates all the dependencies.
It is one reason why I do not use a flatpak except in a VM just to see what is there.
02-14-2022, 08:08 PM (This post was last modified: 02-14-2022, 08:42 PM by Ofnuts.)
Folks, all of your replies have been generous in knowledge and I am printing them out for future reference. However, I hope you can appreciate how much time in research and communicating on this forum has been taken away from my original photography product.
I do not understand 3/4 of what you have told me. The only thing I was truly able to comprehend were from rich2005 in attempting to access some sort of path to some folder that I'm not certain of and would not know what to do with if I found it! I have enclosed a screenshot of the result.
Flatpak? Soft Link? "The location of the Gimp 2.10 user profile is ~/.config/GIMP/2.10/ (~ = your home directory)?"
I respectfully ask, just how much about all the Linux mechanics do I have to delve into before I can scan in a simple photograph to GIMP? I guess I am perplexed at the fact that I can do it fuss-free in LiberOffice Writer and export it to a PDF in which I can import into GIMP as a back-door approach.
It just seems to me that a direct scan into GIMP would be a foundational feature in the program's original creation and work always right out of the box. Please understand I am not intending to be critical of the developers but, hopefully justifying they either directly create or purchase "Scan into GIMP" software for basic use. It's like buying a car that only has back doors!
I am asking any one of you who may be involved in GIMP's future development, to lobby hard for this feature to be included.
I was willing to pay for Photoshop but, like many of you, detest giving my money to big corporations like Adobe. I would also be willing to PAY for a version of GIMP that does what I need it to do, right out of the box. At least I would know my money is going toward future improvement of the product.
I cannot afford to spend any more time on this research and with trial and error. I've got a product to produce by a deadline. GIMP developers should make this possible without any time-wasting queries back and forth, without my having to think about it.
Folks, I turn my computer on to get wok done, not to sit and tweak it.
02-15-2022, 12:15 PM (This post was last modified: 02-15-2022, 12:19 PM by rich2005.)
Quote:...However, I hope you can appreciate how much time in research and communicating on this forum has been taken away from my original photography product.
..and I hope you appreciate the amount of effort trying to extract information to provide a useful answer.
You can scan directly into Gimp with SANE and xsane installed but in Gimp xscanimage is used.
It does look like there is a bug with the xsane Gimp plugin.
To use xsane I have a replacement that I use with kubuntu 20.04
File attached, unzip, put it into your Gimp plugins folder /home/your-login-name/.config/GIMP/2.10/plug-ins/ (aka ~/.config/GIMP/2.10/plug-ins/ )
A million thanks for this, rich2005. I've tried just too many frustrating things before deciding that it must be a bug - this was one of the major things that remained that was stopping me from moving to Ubuntu 22.04. Everything I had already works fine on 20.04 - I've forgotten where I got the xsane plug-in for that.
(02-15-2022, 12:15 PM)rich2005 Wrote:
Quote:...However, I hope you can appreciate how much time in research and communicating on this forum has been taken away from my original photography product.
..and I hope you appreciate the amount of effort trying to extract information to provide a useful answer.
You can scan directly into Gimp with SANE and xsane installed but in Gimp xscanimage is used.
It does look like there is a bug with the xsane Gimp plugin.
To use xsane I have a replacement that I use with kubuntu 20.04
File attached, unzip, put it into your Gimp plugins folder /home/your-login-name/.config/GIMP/2.10/plug-ins/ (aka ~/.config/GIMP/2.10/plug-ins/ )
A million thanks for this, rich2005. I've tried just too many frustrating things before deciding that it must be a bug - this was one of the major things that remained that was stopping me from moving to Ubuntu 22.04. Everything I had already works fine on 20.04 - I've forgotten where I got the xsane plug-in for that.