[sane-devel] Third revision of Scanner HOWTO available

[abel deuring]

Howard Shane schrieb:
> ...at http://66.25.191.66/docs/HOWTOS/Scanner/index.html
> 
> This is your last chance to point out any remaining technical errata
> prior to grammatical review and (hopefully) publication by TLDP.

Perhaps I'm jumping a bit too late into the discussion of your Howto, 
but anyway, here are my 2 cents:

> 2.1. SCSI Devices
> 
> These scanners connect to an SCSI adapter. In general just about
 > any scanner using an SCSI interface should work, though some with
 > difficulty. While most SCSI-cards that linux supports allow scanning,
 > you should be aware that if your SCSI card came come bundled with
 > your scanner you may run into problems, as these may not be complete
 > SCSI cards (much like a winmodem).

I don't think that "just about any scanner using a SCSI interface" works 
with Sane -- users should first check on the Sane web site, if a scanner 
is indeed supported.

 > 3.2.1. Kernel SCSI Support
 >
 > If you have an SCSI-type interface, when invoking make config, make
 > menuconfig or make xconfig etc., be aware that in addition to the
 > option to support your particular SCSI adapter, generic SCSI device
 > support is also required. Such generic devices are usually named
 > /dev/sg0, /dev/sg1... Since you probably already know if your card is
 > supported from the supported devices and backends list, all that is
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 > required after confirming that your kernel supports your hardware and
 > generic SCSI devices is to load the appropriate module(s):

The text "supported devices and backends list" links to the page 
http://www.mostang.com/sane/sane-mfgs.html (SANE: supported devices), 
which does not list any SCSI adapters, but "only" scanners, while you 
are writing here about kernel SCSI support. I think it would be good to 
point out (either in 3.2.1 or perhaps in section 2.1) that one must have 
support for a SCSI adapter card in the kernel, regardless of the SCSI 
scanner model. And it would perhaps help to mention that any combination 
of SCSI adapter and SCSI scanner will work, provided that the SCSI 
adapter is suported by the kernel and that the scanner is supported by 
Sane. (there are some nasty combinations though, like HP scanners / 2.4 
kernels / Bus Logic adapters.)

In "7. Sane Frontends", you write only about xsane and xscanimage. While 
I agree that xsane is probably the most advanced frontend, I think it 
would be fair to mention at least shortly that other frontends exist, 
like Quiteinsane and Kooka. Even Openoffice has builtin support for Sane 
(though not with a very comfortable user interface...).

Abel