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Fujitsu just released their latest scanner, the ScanSnap IX500. Does this scanner work with Ubuntu, or Linux in general?

Evan Carroll
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2 Answers2

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YES

This scanner does work with Ubuntu with sane/xsane out of the box.

Old backstory (when the ix500 was just released)

The SANE team got it working by hacking up a backend for the ix500. It currently only provides color scans at the driver level (gray and B&W are done in software). Pull down the sane-backend project from the git repo, compile it, and install. There may be a few permission problems, but as root, I can run simple-scan and get everything I want out of it.

This device prides itself on wireless however the wireless only works with Android and the iPhone, and to make matters even worse configuring the device to connect to the WiFi access point requires Windows or MacOS.

You won't get your full value out of this scanner with Linux. That's because Fujitsu doesn't fund or endorse the SANE project (their loss, and our loss). That said, it'll work to some degree.

Evan Carroll
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  • I love the scan snap and Ubuntu. Really wish I could use them together reliably but it looks like we'd need some good driver support to get the features I need which are blank page removal and page rotation? – simgineer Jul 05 '15 at 16:22
  • Dont use it. it does not work in 2015 with Ubuntu 15 i have tested and failed –  Mar 31 '16 at 16:07
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    For what it's worth, in 2016 with Ubuntu 16.04 I installed sane and xsane and it worked out of the box. It's listed here: http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html#Z-FUJITSU – Ibrahim May 12 '16 at 20:14
  • with 16.04 and sane/xsane can you press the scan button and it will create a pdf of the document in the tray? – simgineer May 15 '16 at 20:33
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    OK, now it's 2018. The ix500 has been working great for me with Arch Linux (for a couple years already). However, I would like to try to get wireless scanning working. If I initially set that up with a Windows PC, is there a way to scan wirelessly from Linux? – MountainX May 31 '18 at 22:23
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It’s Feb 2023 and via usb connection the ScanSnap IX500 shows up by default in Ubuntu 22.04. All scanning options work using the Document Scanner Application.

I find that the tactile scan button on the ScanSnap IX500 does not trigger any scan operations in the OS. Thus the scan button on the device is inop.

reido113
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  • Does this add any value over the top answer where I said "This scanner does work with Ubuntu with sane/xsane out of the box." – Evan Carroll Feb 03 '23 at 18:39
  • It does confirm that the ScanSnap is still working under Jammy, @EvanCarroll. Should be a comment but new contributors have insufficient reputation. – Frobozz Feb 03 '23 at 18:58