Re: Scanner Compatibility
Predrag Punosevac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> If I do understand, this seems a close analogue of PPL files in the >> printing world, right? > You meant PPD files? Yes that's what I meant! >> In fact, I have no serious reason to run amd64 since I use my amd64 >> computer as a ``user workstation'' and the main benefit from running >> amd64 is to manage huge amounts of RAM --- as far as I can tell from >> the various docs I have read. My reasons to run amd64 are mainly geeky >> or childish :) >> > I hope you do not have 32 Gb of RAM as my neighbor who is a gamer and > passionately in love with > Windows Vista:-) On another hand those gamers are the reason that I > can go to junk yard and get a > PIII with 512 Mb of RAM and 10Gb Hard-drive for $5. I am a happy > camper! The only reason I disregarded my K2-400 with 128 Mo (from'97) in favor to a somewhat new material was that PostScript/PDF rendering was way too slow on the former machine. I am mainly working with Emacs, producing TeX documents and OCaml programs. For these activities $5 computers are excellent! -- All the best, Michaël ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Scanner Compatibility
Michaël Grünewald wrote: Predrag Punosevac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Let me clarify firstly some things. Thank you very much for this very detailed answer, it's very nice from you! [SNIP] In essence your scanner uses this file to explain the Sane the page layout and graphics. So it is not a driver! If I do understand, this seems a close analogue of PPL files in the printing world, right? [SNAP] You meant PPD files? (Of course there is subtitle difference between CUPS-PPD files and generic PPD files used by LPD). My hunch is yes but I have not read enough documentation to say yes or no. I would really like to hear from some Sane developers or IT professional who works on scanners who will give us more explanation. So far my understanding is following. The kernel recognizes your scanning device using the uscanner0 driver and usb daemon as it is attached to USB. Sane-backhands and Sane-fronthands is a collection of drivers that speak scanner language. As a mater of fact it used to be that you need one driver per application per scanner (like printing in old times) but I think that one of chef achievements of Sane project is to automatize writing drivers so that you need to write one driver per application and then hack it to work on all supported scanners. Firmware is dictionary which teach sane backhand to speak proprietary language of a particular scanner. So it is something like this scanner<---> uscanner0<>sane-backhands<> Xsane ^ | firmware I see no reason why should sane-backhands work any different on amd64. Now you made clear that these binary blobs consist of data (and not of a cpu program), I do not see either. I will soon be able to tell :) Does the generic kernel on for amd64 contains the same drivers as for i386? Also kernel driver like uscanner and even usb daemon might be on the different level of the development than in i386 as they really need to interact to different amd64 kernel. A kernel developer could easily clarify this for us. On another hand if you are using amd64 that tells me that you are running serious production servers so why would you want to attach a scanner to such machine is not really clear to me. In fact, I have no serious reason to run amd64 since I use my amd64 computer as a ``user workstation'' and the main benefit from running amd64 is to manage huge amounts of RAM --- as far as I can tell from the various docs I have read. My reasons to run amd64 are mainly geeky or childish :) I hope you do not have 32 Gb of RAM as my neighbor who is a gamer and passionately in love with Windows Vista:-) On another hand those gamers are the reason that I can go to junk yard and get a PIII with 512 Mb of RAM and 10Gb Hard-drive for $5. I am a happy camper! As I said before the handbook is excellent but here is my quick and dirty step by step how to for scanners. [SNIP] Thanks a lot for this con tribution, I realized that Handbook article about scanner could be appended but there are people on this mailing lists who are qualified to do so unlike me. Cheers, Predrag ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Scanner Compatibility
Predrag Punosevac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Let me clarify firstly some things. Thank you very much for this very detailed answer, it's very nice from you! [SNIP] > In essence your scanner uses this file to explain the Sane the page > layout and graphics. So it is not a driver! If I do understand, this seems a close analogue of PPL files in the printing world, right? [SNAP] > I see no reason why should sane-backhands work any different on > amd64. Now you made clear that these binary blobs consist of data (and not of a cpu program), I do not see either. I will soon be able to tell :) > On another hand if you are using amd64 that tells me that you > are running serious production servers so why would you want to attach > a scanner to such machine is not really clear to me. In fact, I have no serious reason to run amd64 since I use my amd64 computer as a ``user workstation'' and the main benefit from running amd64 is to manage huge amounts of RAM --- as far as I can tell from the various docs I have read. My reasons to run amd64 are mainly geeky or childish :) > As I said before the handbook is excellent but here is my quick and > dirty step by step how to for scanners. [SNIP] Thanks a lot for this con tribution, -- Cheers, Michaël ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Scanner Compatibility
On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Micha?l Gr?newald wrote: Predrag Punosevac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: I use Epson Perfection 1670 and it works like a charm. Unfortunately it does require binary blob which might be something you want to avoid. What is that binary blob stuff? Do you mean by this a binary image that should be loaded in kernel --- after being correctly wrapped just like some wifi card drivers? If this is the case, there is no chance to make the blob work under amd64, is there? Some scanners have no built-in firmware. The driver downloads the firmware to the scanner on initialization. The best way to avoid problems with a firmware download is to avoid equipment that uses it. The SANE documentation should help you identify scanners that require a firmware download; my Epson 1640SU doesn't, for example. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Scanner Compatibility
Michaël Grünewald wrote: Predrag Punosevac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: I use Epson Perfection 1670 and it works like a charm. Unfortunately it does require binary blob which might be something you want to avoid. What is that binary blob stuff? Do you mean by this a binary image that should be loaded in kernel --- after being correctly wrapped just like some wifi card drivers? If this is the case, there is no chance to make the blob work under amd64, is there? Ok, Let me clarify firstly some things. Firmware is a binary file which you extract in this case from the M$ .cab file supplied to you by scanner manufacturer. You place this file on proper file /usr/local/share/sane/snapscan. (So it is different than a kernel module for Wi drivers that you kldload into your kernel) I have never bothered to understand scanning as much as I tried to understand Unix printing but I believe that this file is used by sane to speak proprietary language of your particular scanner. In essence your scanner uses this file to explain the Sane the page layout and graphics. So it is not a driver! I am not sure if there is such thing as Command Scanner Language (you are probably familiar with Command Printer Language) and something equivalent to Postscript language in world of printers. Anyhow, if you are serious about security you should never use any type of binaries supported by hardware vendors. (I sound if I have been using too much OpenBSD lately :-) ) I see no reason why should sane-backhands work any different on amd64. On another hand if you are using amd64 that tells me that you are running serious production servers so why would you want to attach a scanner to such machine is not really clear to me. You may attach a scanner to a workstation running i386 and possibly make scanning available on the local network but never to serious production server. If you need step by step instructions how to install scanner you might contact me via private mail. I am very interested in this kind of technical information, since I do foreplan to buy a scanner. If you really think[1] this discussion would be a nuisance for the list, would you be kind enough to CC me? [1] One can consider that even if the discussion topic does not hit most of its members, it can be useful to contribute here these technical details because they will be archived and could then be referenced in future discussions, searched, etc. As I said before the handbook is excellent but here is my quick and dirty step by step how to for scanners. For the purposes of this how to I will assume that your scanner is attached via USB to your workstation. (You can read the handbook about SCSI scanners) Step 1 Make sure your kernel contains the following (Generic Kernel will contain it!!!) device usb device uhci device ohci device uscanner Step 2 Edit /etc/devfs.conf with the permissions perm ugen* 0666 perm uscanner* 0666 This is of course huge security risk and there are much better ways to give access to sane-backhands and common users to device nodes. Step 3 Reboot the computer Step 4 Type $ scanimage -L as a common user to get a list of detected scanners. You should get something as [pedja@ /usr/home/Pedja]$ scanimage -L device `snapscan:/dev/uscanner0' is a EPSON EPSON Scanner flatbed scanner Step 5 Type $ scanimage -T as a common user to test the installation. You should get something like this if your scanner does not need binary blob. [pedja@ /usr/home/Pedja]$ scanimage -T scanimage: scanning image of size 2552x3507 pixels at 24 bits/pixel scanimage: acquiring RGB frame, 8 bits/sample scanimage: reading one scanline, 7656 bytes... PASS scanimage: reading one byte... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 2 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 4 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 8 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 16 bytes...PASS scanimage: stepped read, 32 bytes...PASS scanimage: stepped read, 64 bytes...PASS scanimage: stepped read, 128 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 256 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 512 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 1024 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 2048 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 4096 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 8192 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 8191 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 4095 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 2047 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 1023 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 511 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 255 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 127 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 63 bytes...PASS scanimage: stepped read, 31 bytes...PASS scanimage: stepped read, 15 bytes...PASS scanimage: stepped read, 7 bytes... PASS scanimage: stepped read, 3 bytes... PASS Note: All of the above is very well explained in man scanimage Step 6 Read
Re: Scanner Compatibility
Predrag Punosevac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I use Epson Perfection 1670 and it works like a charm. Unfortunately > it does require binary blob which might be something you want to > avoid. What is that binary blob stuff? Do you mean by this a binary image that should be loaded in kernel --- after being correctly wrapped just like some wifi card drivers? If this is the case, there is no chance to make the blob work under amd64, is there? > If you need step by step instructions how to install scanner you > might contact me via private mail. I am very interested in this kind of technical information, since I do foreplan to buy a scanner. If you really think[1] this discussion would be a nuisance for the list, would you be kind enough to CC me? [1] One can consider that even if the discussion topic does not hit most of its members, it can be useful to contribute here these technical details because they will be archived and could then be referenced in future discussions, searched, etc. -- Cheers, Michaël ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Scanner Compatibility
Jason C. Wells wrote: Does this represent the state of the art in scanners under FreeBSD? http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/scanners.html Any other up to the minute tips on purchasing a scanner? Does 7.0-RELEASE present any new issues? Thanks, Jason C. Wells ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" That article is very well written. The only thing that is not emphasized enough is that lots of scanners do require firmware (binary blobs) that you have to extract from M$ .cab files. (You will need to use /usr/ports/archievers/cabextract program to do so). You definitely want to look very carefully the list of supported devices http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html before you make a purchase. I do believe that Epson scanners are probably best solutions for Unix/Linux scanning. I use Epson Perfection 1670 and it works like a charm. Unfortunately it does require binary blob which might be something you want to avoid. The another option is to look the list of devices supported by HPLIP drivers. HPLIP drivers enable full functionality of many all-in-one HP products and also HPLIP can unlock some HP flat bad scanners that where problematic in the past. Bottom line is that you have to do your homework. If you need step by step instructions how to install scanner you might contact me via private mail. Best, Predrag ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Scanner Compatibility
Does this represent the state of the art in scanners under FreeBSD? http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/scanners.html Any other up to the minute tips on purchasing a scanner? Does 7.0-RELEASE present any new issues? Thanks, Jason C. Wells ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
