Ubuntu

Bug #208405
Comment #14

Comment 14 for bug 208405

Revision history for this message

Olaf Meeuwissen (olaf.meeuwissen) wrote on 2009-02-13:

#14

Abel contacted me at work and I promised follow up here on iscan's apparent versioning "mess". I'm doing this from home, in my own time and without my iscan lead developer hat on.

In principle, one should be using the latest version of iscan, irrespective of whatever Epson scanner/all-in-one device one wants to use. According to an announcement[1] on the sane-devel mailing list, that would be iscan-2.16.1 as of writing. Unfortunately, a number of interpreter plugin requiring devices still do not work with iscan versions 2.11.0 and up but these should all run fine with iscan version 2.10.0.

As per same announcement[1], work is underway to fix that for a pile of interpreter plugin requiring devices. Once released, these packages will work with iscan 2.16.1 or later. That same work will also add 64-bit packages and Debian packages for these devices. However, a number of interpreter plugin requiring devices will remain that will only work with iscan 2.10.0. These devices are fairly dated, so there may be very little incentive to update these to work with the latest iscan version, provide 64-bit support and/or Debian packages. People with such devices can (and should?) act to try to increase whatever little incentive there might be. FWIW, the 32-bit interpreter plugin RPMs are easily converted to Debian packages with `alien --scripts` but will still not work with iscan version 2.11.0 or later.

WRT Ubuntu packages, the iscan Debian packages that my employer provides try hard to be distribution independent. Recent developments on the USB scanner configuration front have been a bit of a problem but, IIRC, Ubuntu 7.04, 7.10 and 8.04 should be fine. That means, you should be able to just download the package from the Avasys site and install without any trouble. Just double clicking the icon for the downloaded file is supposed to do the right thing and work.

Ubuntu 8.10 (and by extension Jaunty) were thoughtful enough to provide NO transition window whatsoever :-( for the libltld3 to libltdl7 transition for third party packages, so attempts to install Avasys' binaries will complain about that. You can rebuild your own packages from the source tarball without any changes (unless you want to upload to a PPA, in which case you only have to fiddle with the debian/changelog because Ubuntu doesn't know any 'unstable'). Alternatively, ignoring the libltdl3 dependency (and only that dependency!) when installing and creating a symbolic link is supposed to work as well. See the KNOWN-PROBLEMS file.

So the upshot of all this really is that Ubuntu should only ever provide the latest iscan version. If there are people with devices that are only supported by an older versions or only on i386, bang on Avasys' door. They may not be able to help (whether rightaway or at all) but if you don't even make yourselves heard, how are they supposed to find out?
# Eh, scraping the bug trackers of 15+ distributions is not really an option ;-)

[1] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/sane-devel/2009-February/023957.html

Abel contacted me at work and I promised follow up here on iscan's apparent versioning "mess".  I'm doing this from home, in my own time and without my iscan lead developer hat on.

In principle, one should be using the latest version of iscan, irrespective of whatever Epson scanner/all-in-one device one wants to use.  According to an announcement[1] on the sane-devel mailing list, that would be iscan-2.16.1 as of writing.  Unfortunately, a number of interpreter plugin requiring devices still do not work with iscan versions 2.11.0 and up but these should all run fine with iscan version 2.10.0.

As per same announcement[1], work is underway to fix that for a pile of interpreter plugin requiring devices.  Once released, these packages will work with iscan 2.16.1 or later.  That same work will also add 64-bit packages and Debian packages for these devices.  However, a number of interpreter plugin requiring devices will remain that will only work with iscan 2.10.0.  These devices are fairly dated, so there may be very little incentive to update these to work with the latest iscan version, provide 64-bit support and/or Debian packages.  People with such devices can (and should?) act to try to increase whatever little incentive there might be.  FWIW, the 32-bit interpreter plugin RPMs are easily converted to Debian packages with `alien --scripts` but will still not work with iscan version 2.11.0 or later.

WRT Ubuntu packages, the iscan Debian packages that my employer provides try hard to be distribution independent.  Recent developments on the USB scanner configuration front have been a bit of a problem but, IIRC, Ubuntu 7.04, 7.10 and 8.04 should be fine.  That means, you should be able to just download the package from the Avasys site and install without any trouble.  Just double clicking the icon for the downloaded file is supposed to do the right thing and work.

Ubuntu 8.10 (and by extension Jaunty) were thoughtful enough to provide NO transition window whatsoever :-( for the libltld3 to libltdl7 transition for third party packages, so attempts to install Avasys' binaries will complain about that.  You can rebuild your own packages from the source tarball without any changes (unless you want to upload to a PPA, in which case you only have to fiddle with the debian/changelog because Ubuntu doesn't know any 'unstable').  Alternatively, ignoring the libltdl3 dependency (and only that dependency!) when installing and creating a symbolic link is supposed to work as well.  See the KNOWN-PROBLEMS file.

So the upshot of all this really is that Ubuntu should only ever provide the latest iscan version.  If there are people with devices that are only supported by an older versions or only on i386, bang on Avasys' door.  They may not be able to help (whether rightaway or at all) but if you don't even make yourselves heard, how are they supposed to find out?
# Eh, scraping the bug trackers of 15+ distributions is not really an option ;-)

[1] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/sane-devel/2009-February/023957.html