[sane-devel] USB scanners DO work on Solaris 10 x86

[Tomasz Orlinski]

Yes, I think it would be a good idea to include this information to
README.solaris file. I have used 1.0.14 release of sane-backends. Sun in
Driver Development Kit v. 0.9 writes how to compile SANE, but it does not
really work :) They write about compiling with gcc and give options for Sun
Forte compiler (cc) and forget about attaching a kernel driver. But they
write, that versions earlier than 1.0.14 cannot be used. They want also to
build SANE with Posix threads enabled. So I think that can be true. Sun
writes also, that Solaris Software Express release at least S10_62 is needed
to use libusb. Release number can be checked in /etc/release. The newest
version can be downloaded from www.sun.com/solaris for free.
In my opinion it is important to be cautious when using scanner or just
libusb on important Solaris machines (especially multi-processor ones),
because unlike in other systems, Solaris kernel is fully preemtible, what
means, that many instances of the same driver can ran simultanously - it's
dangerous, when drivers are not perfect. And Solaris USB framework is
absolutely new, so it can contain bugs. I tried to crash my Solaris using
USB subsystem and SANE, I didn't manage to, but it doesn't mean, it's
impossible.
SANE frontends work without any problems with Xsun and GIMP included in
Solaris Software Companion CD.