xsane will only run properly with sudo

[Morgan]

Scanner: Epson Perfection 1250 USB (Detected properly and correct backend
automatically selected by Ubuntu Linux)

The problem:

When run as normal user (hereafter referred to as "user"), Xsane reports "no
devices found" and exits. This is expected since user does not have full
permissions for the scanner device located at /.dev/usb/scanner0. Changing the
permissions of /.dev/usb/scanner0 to 755 or 777 should allow user to run Xsane
and have it detect the scanner. This is how I get it to work in Slackware 9.1.
However, this does not work in Ubuntu. Also, changing ownership of
/.dev/usb/scanner0 from root:root to user:group should allow user to access the
scanner, but again does not. The only solution is to run Xsane through sudo.
Note: This issue is also present when attempting to use the Xsane plugin for The
GIMP. User must run The GIMP through sudo to be able to properly use the plugin.

Why this is a problem:

Users who are new to linux will not easily be able to solve the issue and will
wonder why they can't just click on the menu entry for Xsane and start scanning
(assuming they have a fully supported scanner that was otherwise detected properly).

Thank you for your time, and keep up the GREAT work!

Morgan Johnson

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

This is fixed for new installs; you may need to run "sudo adduser <your
username> scanner" if you are upgrading from an older install

This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 8241.

[Morgan (arashi-no-garou)]

That's odd...I did search before I submitted the bug and never found 1485.
Anyway, stupid me thought of the same solution (add user to scanner group) right
after I sent the bug, and I'm happy to see that it will be a non-issue in future
releases. From what I've seen of Ubuntu, this was perhaps the only roadblock for
any new-to-linux users. Thank you for your quick reply, and happy bug-squashing!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> That's odd...I did search before I submitted the bug and never found 1485.

Just to clear your confusion, #1485 was already resolved at the time you
searched for a related bug. Resolved bugs are not shown by default (you have to
explicitly enable that in the advanced search options).