[sane-devel] Epson 4490 support ?

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Andrew <andrew2006 at flight.us> writes:

>>Andrew <andrew2006 at flight.us> writes:
>>
>>> The Epson 4490 is not listed on 
>>http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html#Z-EPSON
>>
>>Check
>>
>>  http://sane.alioth.debian.org/lists/sane-backends-external.html#S-EPKOWA
>>
>>instead.  It is supported, but on i386 machines only as it requires a
>>non-free plugin.
>>
>>> Surfing around i see people have asked about support, there are
>>> cases where it does NOT work with out-of-the-box distribs/kooka, but
>>> i am not seeing definitive answers of whether it does or doesn't
>>
>>Last time I looked at kooka was during a debugging session trying to
>>find out why it insisted on blowing up regardless of what you did.
>>Hope things have changed for the better since then.
>
> Sorry, i don't have much linux scanning experience; i used kooka with an old scsi HP scanner with no problems and was just assuming that kooka is the scanning swiss-army knife for the entire linux community.  
>
> (Are SCSI scanners better supported than USB/firewire ones?)
>
>>> Does anyone here know if this model is supported?
>>
>>Yes, provided you use it on an i386 machine and don't mind using
>>non-free software.  Packages are available at:
>>
>>  http://www.avasys.jp/english/linux_e/dl_scan.html
>
> thank you, this looks promising. Perhaps the term "non-free
> software" needs some elaboration, though.

As allan m. noah already responded, I meant non-free as in speech.

> The above site has downloadable binaries and source(!)  And, outside
> of computer jargon, "non-free" would almost certainly mean
> "something acquired only through a purchase".  Or did I
> misunderstand the agreement?  There are no trial periods or some
> such, or would i have to pay for the software you referred me to?

The iscan "source" contains a binary object for which no corresponding
source code is provided.  Also the plugin package you will need for
this model is provided in binary form only.

> Plus, the "EPSON AVASYS PUBLIC LICENSE" (linked from the above)
> seems to overlap with GPL on certain rights and "freedoms".  And the
> software is subject to it, to the GPL itself, and other licenses
> allowing redistribution, etc.

We tried to make it as free as we possibly could, but unfortunately
iscan is not 100% free (as in speech).

>>You most likely want the packages for gcc-3.4 or later.
>
> I think so. To home-compile it, i'd probably need to use the gcc-compat 3.4 (?)

You can (re)compile the iscan package if you want, but for the plugin
you will be out of luck.  When using the gcc-3.4 or later package you
should not need any gcc-compat package.  The source we provide should
compile fine with gcc-4.x (with x < 4), AFAIK.

>>If you need Debian packages, use:
>>
>>  alien --scripts --keep-version <rpm-package>
>>
>>for the smoothest ride.
>
> I would use it with Fedora Core 6 and also Fedora 8.
>
> The provided Fedora binaries only go up to FC version 6. I hope to
> be able to compile the source for Fedora 8 (and higher)

You get the same binary packages for all versions of all distributions
(seeing that we don't do Debian packages yet).  The distribution info
is used for statistical purposes.

>>If you are using a distribution that's not officially supported by my
>>employer you may need to straighten out a kink or two, but in general
>>our iscan packages work quite well across multiple distributions.
>
> great. Sorry to nag about kooka - any probability it might work with
> Kooka?

If kooka works fine for you, I would think it should work with the
SANE backend provided by iscan (+ the plugin you'll need).  It's just
that we haven't tested with kooka.

> i haven't bought the scanner yet; this is pre-purchase research, so
> i can't test it yet (i'll try to compile your driver, however, and
> report results here as soon as i can)

Hope this helps,
-- 
Olaf Meeuwissen             FLOSS Engineer -- EPSON AVASYS Corporation
FSF Associate Member #1962           sign up at http://member.fsf.org/