[sane-devel] 32-bit proprietary drivers on AMD64: a plan

[Ivan Boldyrev]

Greetings!

I have found that my EPSON Perfection V200 doesn't work after upgrade
to 64 bit Linux.  The infamous AVASYS corporation gives only 32-bit
version of their proprietary "plugins".

The "plugin" is a 32-bit .so that is used by backend sane-epkowa.  But
64-bit code cannot use 32-bit libraries.

I see possible solutions:
0.  Switch to 32-bit Linux.  I don't want to even discuss it :)
1.  Use 32-bit sane (backends and frontends).  But it would also imply
that e.g. GIMP has to be compiled 32-bit too.
2.  Run 32-bit sane in a 32-bit chroot; 64-bit sane will talk with it
over net.  The great benefit of this way is that it doesn't require
writing any code, but requires some configuration and, probably
mantainance.
3.  Do a 32-bit wrapper for 32-bit drivers.  It is similair to
previous, but a) no chroot has to be mantained; b) 64-bit sane talks
to 32-bit backend over pipe.  It will require minimal configuration,
but some code has to be written: 64-bit meta-backend ("sane-host")
that will spawn 32-bit wrapper ("sane-wrapper") with popen and talk to
it over network protocol (as we don't want to reinvent a wheel).  The
wrapper uses 32-bit copy of libsane (and libusb for sane-epkowa),
loads proprierary backend and replies to "sane-host".

The "sane-host" seems to be quite simple, especially if you know sane
API; "sane-wrapper" seems to be simple too.  I'm reading SANE docs and
code and trying to write some code, but very slow.

I don't know if it worth distributing "sane-wrapper" code with SANE as
it requires cross-compilation; may be, it should be contrib or just
separate package.

I'd be glad to get some comments, suggestions, help or even code. :)

--
Ivan Boldyrev