Ubuntu – USB Barcode scanner.

barcode-scannerdriversUbuntuusb

I have a USB Zebex barcode scanner, this device works properly using Windows XP and Windows Vista when I open Notepad.

However I can't get it to work on Ubuntu. I open Gedit, and it makes the same noise as in Windows, but nothing scans.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Best Answer

Two things you could try:

xinput list

This will give you a list of all input devices that are recognized by Xorg and allows you to enable or disable devices as well as test them (replace ${DEVICEID} with what is displayed by xinput list):

xinput set-int-prop ${DEVICEID} 'Device Enabled' 32 1
xinput test ${DEVICEID}

Second thing you could try would be the more low-level evtest tool (replace /dev/input/eventX with the proper device file):

evtest /dev/input/eventX

It should print events to the screen when it gets data. evtest is part of the joystick package in Ubuntu.

Neither of these will make your Barcode scanner work, but they will allow you to figure out where the problem is. If evtest works, but xinput doesn't, then you have to tweak your Xorg.conf and manually add it as extra keyboard, if neither works then its a Kernel driver problem.

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