Howto: Fix XSane error; scanner failed to start.

For a little while now I've been unable to use XSane due to an error when trying to perform a colour scan on my Epson Perfection610.  Many things were tried including purging xsane, removing ~/.sane etc.

I finally found a solution given by Ronok in this post.

Following the full steps is not necessary, I had sane and most things associated with it already installed.

sudo gedit /etc/sane.d/dll.conf

Then find "epson" and "epson2"

#epson
epson2 

Comment out "epson2" and uncomment "epson" so you are left with:

epson
#epson2 

I rebooted but I'm unsure if that is required, afterwards XSane worked perfectly as it had for years.

Howto: Fix an Acer Aspire 1410 Netbook Graphics

Recently my brother decided to give Linux a try, I pointed him at Linux Mint 14 (Cinnamon flavoured).  He found it simple and perfect for his needs but the graphics were hopelessly slow and major problem.  The Intel 4500MHD graphics were awful using the Gallium driver it had defaulted to.

A quick Google wasn't entirely helpful until I found : https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/graphics-drivers?field.series_filter=precise

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers
   sudo apt-get update
     sudo apt-get upgrade
 
A quick reboot and the graphics performance was very much improved.