Get xsane from the repositories. It supports most old and new scanners.
Mine is a 10 year old Mustek and it works fine - without any additional
drivers.

I did a Google search and it said "sane"
was needed which I have but it didn't work. I have added "xsame" and
will try that next. I have also down loaded called isane, something, but
have
unloaded it. May be more later.

MH> I power it up, and press the scan button and don't see anything
MH> happen.

Most buttons on scanners don't work in Linux of any flavour. Strictly
coded for Windows systems.

Install XSANE and Simple Scan then fire up Simple Scan and it'll most
likely work

I just loaded xsane per Lislie Anne and will look for Simple Scan tomorrow.

I have an Epson Perfection 1200U PHOTO myself. It is a normal and
straightforward TWAIN scanner, so any TWAIN driver should do, I
assume.

I'm defaulting to Windows, but when I rebooted this computer into
Ubuntu Studio 11.04 and connected the scanner, xsane immediately
recognized it and allowed me to scan.

The "PHOTO" in the name refers to a piece of hardware to accomodate
strings of photo negatives, if I remember well.

I have done some more investigation last night and found out I needed XSANE
and I loaded it. Next I need to connect the scanner back up and see what
happens.
I do have the unit that plugs in for the negatives but I don't think I
would be using
that feature unless I can find something else to run through it.

I think you will be amazed at just how easy and complete the Linux support
is for your scanner. You will be able to scan directly into many supported
apps like gimp and good ocr software is also free in the repositories.

You will end up wondering why anyone would want to use Windows!

Indeed ,my old HP Scanjet 3300C worked straight away using xsane in Linux
Mint 11
For me , Windows is out and has been for quite some time ,although I keep
Win XP on a separate HD to feed a Magellan Explorist 500 GPS with data
from a CD ,which sadly responds to Win only.