Hi Tom,
On Tue, 06 Feb 2001 01:43:00 -0500, Tom Rittenhouse wrote:
> If the scanner uses the scsi command set it probably doesn't
> have to have a scsi interface per say. For example atapi drives
> use the scsi commands, but go on an ide interface. You have to
> have scsi compiled into the kernel, but do not need the driver
> for a scsi adapter.
Saying that they use the "SCSI command set" is a pretty vague
statement. The SCSI command set is an open-ended beast. For the most
common SCSI devices, hard drives, the command set has converged to the
point that the various manufacturers use the same commands.
But scanners aren't hard drives. Scanners haven't been around long
enough, and "special features" are still a major part of the product
differentiation among them. My (uninformed) suspicion is that there is
still a _lot_ of variability between the command sets the various
scanners use.
I also noticed that virtually all support for parallel, serial, or USB
scanners listed on the S.A.N.E. web site is beta at best, alpha in many
cases, and "NEW" (not even alpha) on the rest. Actually, a lot of the
SCSI scanners are supported at the beta level, too. That doesn't bode
well for the stability of those drivers.
> What the current support for USB is in Linux, I don't know. I
> keep intending to look into it but somehow don't seem to get
> around to it.
I'm going to wait a while longer. Like a year or two. Until then, I've
resigned myself to having to keep a Wintel box around for scanning. Of
course, I have to keep it around for the good driving simulators
anyway. :-)
TTYL, DougF
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