[sane-devel] Re: Sane-devel digest, Vol 1 #146 - 3 msgs

[abel deuring]

jebga at tin.it wrote:
> 
> Could you tell me a blend of scanner that you're mathematically
> absolutely sure and can swear to all that you most care in the whole
> holy universe that works without any problems under linux???

I'm afraid nobody will ever swear that you don't get problems installing
a scanner for even the most closely reviewed and most advanced and award
awinning and generally best Sane backend and frontend (whichever they
might be...)

Firstly, have a look into the GNU General Public License. For good
reasons, it excludes any warranty. And I'm sure no Sane developer (or,
more generally, any halfway honest developer) would claim that his/her
code can mature to a state where it is absolutely bug free. Have a look
into the source code. You'll find countless DBG statements, which can
give us developers a clue what might go wrong, if somebody encounters an
error. But if you flick through the Sane mailing list, I hope you'll see
that we try to fix any errors the best way we can.

Secondly, I guess you mean "without any problems" that you buy a
scanner, install e.g. a SCSI adapter if necessary, connect the scanner,
install Sane, switch on your machine and start to make scans. Especially
the successful installation of a SCSI scanner involves some details that
are completely beyond the responsibility and control of the developers,
like proper cabling and bus termination. This is completely your, the
user's, responsibility. 

(BTW, one of the first Apple G3 models had fancy design detail: To
connect the internal SCSI hard disc, they used an ordinary Adaptec 2940
-- with one modification, aside from a Mac compatible BIOS: They covered
the adapter's connector for external devices with a small sheet of
plastic or cardboard, so that no user may be tempted to connect any
external device to the 2940. For external devices, they installed a
second SCSI adapter that I have seen working with suprisingly weird
cabling and different variants of wrong termination.)

Moreover, there are a few details that you need to be aware of: Even if
the hardware installation is successful, you might need to configure
some other things, like device file permissions. This is too something,
where we can't give a warranty that you do it properly ;)

If you want to be sure to buy a usable scanner, you can either ask your
dealer to install everything, including the necessary software, or make
sure that you can return the scanner in the case that it is not useful
for you.

Abel