Quoting Andrew Greig (pushin.linux@gmail.com):
Thanks for that tip. The dll.conf file had everything commented out, so all I had to do was lose the hash in front of the epson2 entry.
Yeah, that would do it. ;-> Glad you got to the bottom of that, though one wonders _what_ disabled all SANE back-ends.
By the way I downloaded a trial version of Vuescan, a proprietary scanning front end which runs on Linux. It must be small as it took around 20 seconds to download, and the whole thing was self contained. I stuck it in my Downloads folder. Last night, before I had done the dll.conf thing, running of the binary, it found the scanner and was ready to go with a very slick, clean interface in seconds. Scan quality was very good but trial scans are heavily watermarked, and issue the invitation to buy the full versions. A very nice piece of work.
Yes, Vuescan has an excellent reputation, and I've often recommended it for users of scanners unsupported (or poorly supported) by SANE. As with other categories of proprietary drivers, Vuescan has the advantage that its maintainer (Hamrick Software) can sign NDAs to get access to secret manufacturer-confidential chipset information, instead of needing to reverse-engineer that information or glean it from public information, as open source coders are obliged to do. So, inherently, they have an information advantage in coding for the problem cases. Additionally, they have a financial incentive to develop support even for obscure hardware that open source coders would try _not_ to own and have no compelling personal interest in supporting. Personally, on the rare occasions when I end up with hardware with really poor or nonexistent open source driver support, I interpret that as an indicator of undesirable hardware, sell it, and get something better. Your Mileage May Differ.[tm]