(since I had to read several posts) Here are in a single page all the steps I needed to make it work in Ubuntu 14.04 (via xsane).
connect the scanner
ensure it is recognized
lsusb
in teh output, search for the Canon device
...
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 04a9:190f Canon, Inc.
...
ensure your user has access to the bus (otherwise you'll have to launch everytime xsane as root)
sudo chmod u+w /dev/bus/usb/
in my case
sudo chmod u+w /dev/bus/usb/003/003
Then, add this ppa to install latest version of xsane
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rolfbensch/sane-git
and install xsane
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gocr libsane-extras xsane-common xsane
if you have problems, install a couple of additional packets with
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gocr libusb-dev libsane-dev libsane-extras xsane-common xsane
now you can run
xsane
