One
of the well known Linux problem is the lack of hardware drivers. I've
sometime complained,
in the past, about the poor support my HP
ScanJet G4050 scanner had on Linux promising myself to try to
find a solution using VirtualBox with a Windows guest machine.
Fortunately a good enough SANE
scanner driver came out and I forgot quickly about my intent. I lived
well with my SANE driver recently when I found a bunch of old film
negatives. The HP SANE driver works fine and fast but doesn't support
the scanner transparent materials adapter (TMA). I so decided to go
back to my initial idea about using VirtualBox and a Windows guest
machine.
Setting-up VirtualBox
In order to fully support USB devices
an extension pack has to be installed in addition to VirtualBox main
program. The extension pack version must match with the VirtualBox
one. Since the VirtualBox version I used, installed with Ubuntu
Software Centre, did not match with any of the available versions I
had to download
both main program and extension pack.
I first uninstalled the the
VirtualBox version I had on my computer then I installed the
downloaded “.deb” file. Once the right version was ready I could
eventually install the expansion pack from VirtualBox preferences.
The extension pack installation
starts asking confirmation first
then the license agreement
As the installation completed I went
to my host machine configuration but still couldn't see any USB
device available. After some googling
around I discovered I had to add my user to the “vboxusers”
group. This can be done by command line with the “adduser”
command or graphically by installing the “Gnome
System Tools” and using the provided “User Settings” tool.
At last I could enable the HP G4050
scanner in my guest machine
Once the guest machine started and
the scanner software was installed I could start scanning my
negatives.
Some final thoughts …
My scanner works fine in the virtual
machine even it's less responsive than when I use the SANE driver.
Other scanners could, of course, behave in different way or even do
not work at all. If your guest machine runs, like mine, the old and
now unsupported Windows XP better you disable networking in order
to minimize the risk of having it infected. Last but not least, keep
an eye on licenses, especially if you're installing onto your
computer at work. VirtualBox expansion pack come with a different
license (PUEL:
Personal use and evaluation license) also remember not all Windows
licenses can be installed on a virtual machine.
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