[sane-devel] Epson2 backend and ADF

[Michael Koltan]

Am 19.08.2013 02:56, schrieb Olaf Meeuwissen:
>
> Michael Koltan writes:
>
>> Am 03.08.2013 05:28, schrieb Olaf Meeuwissen:
>>>
>>> Olaf Meeuwissen writes:
>>>> Precompiled binaries are available from:
>>>>
>>>>     http://download.ebz.epson.net/dsc/search/01/search/?OSC=LX
>>
>> The binaries didn't install because of a missing dependency,
>
> Which one?
>

Asking the question was to solve it. The missing dependency was ltdl3 
and when I looked at the filename which explicitely stated, that it was 
compiled for ltdl3 I devined, that there is probably a binary for ltdl7. 
This installs flawlessly.

>> but I was
>> able to compile a deb-package for wheezy (after turning off the tests).
>> But it didn't work correctly, and searching the error drove me nearly
>> crazy until I realized, I was fighting with a hardware problem, not a
>> software problem. After solving the problem with the adf, the epkowa
>> driver now works perfectly without any changes! Thank you very much.
>
> Care to explain the hardware problem briefly?

In fact there were two problems. First: The transport belt of the ADF 
gets slightly stuck when it is not used for several days. It is easy to 
solve this if you just move it some centimeters, but we didn't realize 
this for weeks.
I had the suspicion, that I was fighting against a hardware problem, so 
I made a second mistake: Since we own two GT-10000+ I put the ADF from 
one scanner to the other without realizing, that there is some rail 
installed at the scanner (not the ADF) to guide the paper. So the 
scanner did some very funny things with the paper.
Installing the ADF back to the first scanner and slightly moving the 
transport belt before scanning worked miracles after weeks of frustration.

>
>> I am now trying to change the epson2 driver accordingly; since the
>> epkowa driver supports the nifty feature to determine automatically the
>> scan area for paper from the adf I will try to incorporate this in the
>> epson2 driver.
>
> Why bother if you can just use the epkowa driver?
> # I'm solliciting user input here.  I can think of a few reasons myself
> # but I'd like to back them up with user feedback.
>

First of all, I think, sane should work out of the box and that you 
shouldn't have to install third party modules. Most users will give up 
frustrated when they install sane, get their scanner working somehow 
(with the epson2 backend) and then realize, that features are missing. 
Most users won't google around and search if there is another backend 
they might install. I would think that at that point about 90% of the 
users are giving up. This is bad advertising for open source software.

Secondly I'm not sure how long Epson will provide the epkowa backend for 
newer versions of linux. There is always a chance, that it will disappear.

And then I have at least one of the virtues of a good programmer: I'm 
lazy. If I have fixed the epson2 backend, further updates will require 
much less work. And programming is much more fun (if you aren't stuck 
with hardware problems) than searching for additional packages on the 
internet.

Thanks again for your help

Michael