My old Canon Scanner only works with a 32 bit operating system. I have a spare old laptop. If I was to put a new HD and run Linus on it would it be OK?
You do know that a new decent scanner costs less than $100, right? Why do you want to complicate your life so much?
32 bit drivers should still work with on AMD64, saying that tho, i have not actually set up anything other than my combination network printer/scanner in a long time. default drivers usually work in linux.