Linux

I had this problem already on several (debian) linux machines:
After updating sun-javaX-{bin,jre,plugin}, iceweasel/firefox still references the old (here: 1.4.2) version of java on about:plugins.

This can be solved by simply deleting the ~/.mozilla/firefox/pluginsreg.dat file while firefox is not running.
After that, firefox will re-create the file after finding the "new" java plugin.

edit:
Sometimes, there is still an old java version installed and the plugin is linked in the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins folder (or any other plugins folder firefox looks in,
there are at least 3 on my debian machine¹ *gnarf*).
As Firefox simply tries to use the first it finds, you have to remove the link (or the old java version) before searching again using the trick described above.

¹ /usr/lib/{mozilla, mozilla-firefox, firefox}/plugins, ~/.mozilla/plugins

(via linuxquestions.org, thx craigevil!)

When you have a usb multifunction printer like I do and you are trying to use the scanner in linux, you may encounter the following behaviour:

When you try to use your scanner using sane (scanimage, xsane, kooka, ...) it seems that nothing happens or you
may receive an error message "error starting printer: invalid argument".

This is normally caused by one of two things:

1. missing permission to use the usb device


2. usb device is blocked by another driver

Continue reading "Linux printing and scanning with multifunction devices"