RE: Linux Support for Current Microtek Scanners

From: Marcel Pol (mpol@gmx.net)
Date: Sat Nov 18 2000 - 01:50:58 PST

  • Next message: Oliver Neukum: "Re: Linux Support for Current Microtek Scanners"

    On 27-Oct-00 Michael Papet wrote:
    > My name is Michael Papet. I am a Product Manager at Microtek. I'm
    > wondering if there is any way I can help you guys port newer
    > scanners to Linux. Let me know how I can help.
    > My telephone number is 310-297-5000 ext. 5355.

    I believe support for Linux and Sane from Microtek is a good thing.
    At this moment there is not much development for the microtek
    backends.
    Bernd Schroeder is/was the maintainer of the microtek2 (scsi2)
    backend, but he has not worked on it this year. It's rather unclear if
    he will continue maintaining. Karsten Festag is working now to add
    support for the Phantom 330.
    I would not know in which way you could help him, he might be the one
    to tell you that.

    You're saying "newer scanners". I guess you mean scsi2 scanners. It
    would be nice though if you could do something for the microtek
    (scsi1) backend. There is no maintainer anymore for the
    microtek backend, the maintainer Matto Marjanovic disappeared last
    year.
    My Microtek Pagewiz (sheetfed) worked with a modified 0.10 backend on
    sane 1.0.1, but i never got it to work (i/o error) with the 0.12
    backend on sane 1.0.2. I'm using a microtek2 scanner now, but a lot
    of people use microtek(1) scanners, and report problems with them.
    I'm sure support on these scanners will be a good thing.

    Another thing might be helpfull.
    Firmware versions under 1.60 are found buggy with sane. In the past
    some people asked Microtek for firmware upgrades. A few months ago,
    Harald Finster got the firmware version 1.60.
    It woud be a good thing if Microtek made their last version
    available, with documentation how to upgrade. Ofcourse upgrading
    firmware will be on responsibily of the user, in case things go wrong.

    On the website www.torque.net/ppscsi.html there is a kernelpatch for
    parport scanners. It has support for the OnSpec 90c26 chipset, used
    by microtek parport scanners. It is maintained by Tim Waugh.
    It could he needs help in maintaining the onscsi kernelmodule.
    It would be a good thing to ask him, if he can use help on that.

    I believe it's a good thing to have Microtek support on Linux and
    Sane. However, you might need to struggle through some mixed emotions.
    Support from Microtek hasn't been great in the past. Support to
    end-users has been close to zero. I can't really tell about support
    for developers, but i heard about people who requested for
    documentation and only got old documentation.
    Your support could change this, and benefit us all.

    Marcel Pol
    --
    mpol@gmx.net
    ICQ 76013639
                                                 

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