Epson Artisan 810 With Ubuntu 9.10 (9.04)

I just purchased the Epson Artisan 810 yesterday, after having returned the Kodak ESP 7. Quick word on the Kodak ESP 7 - DON'T BUY IT if you run Linux! I wanted to configure my new, shiny printer to print/scan over the network - just to see it work. The first thing I learned was that my printer seems to be a little flaky about picking up and keeping a DHCP-allocated IP address. This could be due to my not having read the manual, but it appeared to initially pick up an IP and allow me to see it via Ubuntu's Printer searching wizard, but after fiddling with other things and unplugging and moving the printer around, it seemed to have lost its ability to pick up an IP again. I'm not saying it's the printer's fault, but I couldn't figure out why it didn't consistently pick up (or retain) an IP address. I eventually relented and assigned it a static IP and that did the trick.

Next, you'll need to install libltdl3 library. There's something screwed up or changed with this library from 9.04 on apparently. You can grab it here. If you're reading this in a browser in Ubuntu, when you browse to there and choose a location (i.e. North America or whatever), the download should start immediately (if you chose to open the file in Firefox - otherwise you can save it and install from command line if you know how) and will probably launch the deb installer which should be fine. This library is needed for the next part.

You'll go here, choose your printer, answer their questions and then you can download all kinds of drivers/software for Linux for your printer. You'll need to grab: EPSON-Artisan_810-pipslite-en.ppd and save it somewhere of note. You'll also grab: pipslite_1.4.0-5_i386.deb. Again, this will likely result in the deb installer starting (if you choose to open it in the browser) and it should install without a hitch if you installed the libltdl3 library from the previous paragraph.


Now, make sure your printer's on and connected to the network (wirelessly or otherwise) and in Ubuntu's menus, go to System - Administration - Printing. A small window will open.
Choose "New" in that window. It'll search for local & networked printers. If your printer's on and connected to the network, it should be found. Click on "Network Printer" in the resulting window. You should see your printer (I actually see it twice for some reason - I choose the one with 'EPSONFF05DB' in parentheses). Choose it and select "Forward" button. Ubuntu will search for drivers and probably shouldn't find them, so it'll let you choose one. Select "Provide PPD file' and use the little file-chooser drop-down to browse to the EPSON-Artisan_810-pipslite-en.ppd file you downloaded and saved earlier. Click "Forward" - then "Apply". It'll ask if you want to print a test page - you can choose "Yes" at this point and try things out. You should see a new Printer icon for your new printer in the little "Printer configuration" window where you earlier chose "New". Your print should come out and all should be mostly well with the world. It may be a little slow getting started on the print if you're on a wireless network - something to be mindful of.

Now, let's get that printer going too...
Install iscan_2.23.0-3_i386.deb from that same site you got the other deb files. This is a program that allows you to scan using all the Artisan's capabilities (although XSane seems to do everything too - plus more probably).
To be able to do network scanning, you'll need to install iscan-network-nt_1.1.0-2_i386.deb from the same place you got the the pipslite and ppd files. This is like a driver or plugin (or something) for the iscan & SANE packages that's responsible for scanning in Linux that enables iscan/SANE to see networked scanners as local scanners (I guess). Install this deb file just like the others.

Finally, open a terminal (Applications - Accessories - Terminal from Ubuntu's main menu). Type: sudo gedit /etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf (substitute gedit for vi or whatever you like)
At the very bottom of the file, add a line like:
net 192.168.1.5
Substituting '192.168.1.5' for whatever the IP address is for your printer. If you allowed your printer to use DHCP and got it working, you'll have to determine if your DHCP server (which is often your router too) is associating the IP address it allocated, with a name. If so, you can use that name to refer to your printer instead of the IP address. This is kind-of key so be sure you know the name or IP. You can test the name buy pinging your router form the command prompt: ping printername
Save the file.
then type: sudo /etc/init.d/saned restart
Now, launch Applications - Graphics - Image Scan!
If you did everything correctly, it should start up and you can now scan.
Put something on the flatbed of the scanner and click the "Preview" button. If an image shows up, then all is even more well with the world than before.
You're all set and ready to go!

BTW, you can scan from XSane (also under the graphics package in Ubuntu) too. It's about the same and let's you do OCR if you scan to Viewer (default I think) and then click the little button with letters on it. You will have to install 'gocr' for that to work.

Install gocr - open command prompt - type 'sudo apt-get install gocr'. Now you can do free OCR with XSane.

C Ya!