From: F J Brooks [mailto:fred@redgrave.screaming.net]

I am a complete newbie and have recently installed SuSE 8.1. Has anyone been able to make an HP Scanjet 5300C scanner work with SuSE 8.1?

This guy claims to have done so http://members.tripod.com/~mjallen/linuxscanner.html this is a good sign, his link is to the main sane webpage.

the FAQs about SANE hp-backend. I've consulted several Sane

Those words "hp-backend" led me to do a little digging on the web. If you visit http://www.mostang.com/sane/sane-mfgs.html#HEWLETT-PACKARD (the SANE website supported-hardware list) if you scroll down a bit it says the 5300C uses the sane-avision backend, not the "sane-hp" (which is what I am guessing you have looked for hence you saying "hp-backend") There is a couple of links from that page also. One that may be the most use is the webpage for the avision backend http://drocklinux.dyndns.org/rene/avision/index.html

Anyhow let us know how you get on. If you get stuck with this then please post back then I may be able to suggest a bit more to try and fix it.

Adam