Hi there, mmichael. And 'Welcome' to the kennels!
Hmm. Now then; your Perfection 4180 won't work with the 'iscan' package that I outlined above, because my SX218 is an-all-in-one; yours, on the other hand, is a dedicated scanner.
I'm not certain whether the procedure I'm about to outline for you will actually work.....but we'll give it a shot.
The standard response from Epson is 'We don't support Linux'. This is a load of old beeswax, 'cos they
do (they are, after all, founder members of the Linux Foundation, so it's a very strange attitude to take).....but ya gotta hunt 'em up..! So, accordingly:-
Go to this web address:-
http://download.ebz.epson.net/dsc/searc ... archModule
This is the Epson Download centre page. Now; type into the search box exactly as I write here; 'Perfection 4180 Photo'. Then, from the OS drop-down box, select 'Linux'.
Hit the search button.
You should get a page with 4 entries. The entry that I think you want is the first one (for
gcc3.2/3.3);
or, it could be the second one. I'm not certain which version of
gcc Tahrpup uses. Anyway....
Click on the 'Download' button for the first entry; you'll come to another page with details of supported models, and two more buttons; 'Accept' & 'Decline'. Click on 'Accept'. More of the page will then appear. The entry you want is the one ending in '....
i386.rpm.' Click 'Download'.
Repeat this procedure for the second entry in the list. You're not interested in the 3rd & 4th entries, as these are for network installs, which I'm fairly safe in assuming you're not using!
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Right. Now; this the bit I'm
not certain about. These are 'rpm' packages; Tahrpup, being Debian-based, uses '.deb' packages, other than '.pets'. But that's OK, as one of our forum members,
dejan555, has produced a rather nifty little 'converter', which will turn
both .deb & .rpm packages into .pet packages. I've used it myself, and it seems to work nicely.
Go to this page:-
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=39756
A little way down, you'll see 4 downloads available. You want the first one listed (the most recent one);
deb2pet.rpm2pet-0.0.4.pet. Download this, and then find it in your Downloads folder, and click on it to install it.
Then, locate (in your Downloads folder), the two Epson packages you downloaded earlier. If you right-click on each one in turn, you should see, at the top of the right-click context menu, '
Convert to pet'. Click on this, and in a matter of seconds, the .rpm file will be replaced by a .pet file of the same name.
Now; the moment of truth. Click on either of the two recently converted .pet files (I should start with the
gcc 3.2/3.3 one first; this is the newly-created
iscan-2.10.0-1.i386.pet); you'll be asked whether you want to install it. Click 'Yes', and wait for it to do its thing. When it's finished updating the help page, it's ready for use.
If you now go into the main Menu>Graphics, have a look and see if you have '
Iscan for Linux!' listed there. If you have, great; that means (hopefully) that you've got your scanner software installed, and it
should be working. If not, we'll have to try the other one; but first, you'll need to un-install the one you've just installed.
Go to Menu>Setup>Puppy Package Manager. At this point, if you haven't already done so, you'll be offered the
Tahrpup 6.02 & 6.03 updates. These are important bug-fixes, and you definitely want to install these. Click on the
6.03 update, and let the system do its thing. Once this has run its course, you should now be up to date.
Okay. To un-install the first i-scan package, find the 'Uninstall' button, and click on it. Another window will appear, with all the packages that you yourself have installed. Scroll down to the bottom of this, and click on the '
iscan 2.10.0-i386' entry. Wait a few seconds while the uninstall sequence runs its course.
Very important; whatever you do,
don't close the small window that appears at the top-left corner. Wait until it disappears by itself. Once the last window appears, that tells you if the uninstall has been successful, just click 'OK', and you're done.
Now we go back to Downloads. Click on the other entry;'
iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386.pet'. Wait while this installs itself, as before.
Again, we go to Menu>Graphics, and again, look to see if '
Iscan for Linux!' is there. If it
is, you're sorted. Your software is there, and should be working. If, after all this, it
still hasn't appeared, then.....I'm out of ideas.
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Assuming it
has appeared, make sure your scanner is powered on
before you try to open '
Iscan for Linux!' It'll complain about not finding it otherwise! Once the program has opened, it's easy to use, and pretty much self-explanatory. You should
also find that XSane and Peasyscan will now work!
Enjoy.
Hope this helps,
Mike.