Picture this. My wife and I have decided to buy a multi-function printer for our tiny business. We've looked at a few models, and set our hearts on the M1005, which is available locally at a very good price. "Are you sure it will work with Linux?" she asks me. "Oh yes", I reply: "HP are very good at supporting Linux".
Two days later, a sadder & wiser man, I have a beautiful new printer. I have a photocopier. But I don't have a scanner. I need a scanner. Heck, I thought I'd just gone and bought a scanner... so how come I *still* don't have a scanner? (Speaking of printing: Huge thanks to Rick Richardson for developing foo2xqx. If I hadn't been able to get the printing half of the MFP working in a few minutes, I would have already given up and returned it.) Now, as for the scanner half, how hard can it be? The MFP is a USB device: sane & hpiod seem to have no trouble recognising that there's a scanner there and retrieving model information from it. Seems to me there are three possible levels of complexity. 1. hpiod already knows how to talk to the scanner, and I just need to cook up the right models.dat entry. 2. This scanner uses a protocol that hpiod doesn't know about, but could be taught. I'm happy to write some code, but would need a little bit of high-level help: for example if HP could release a description of the protocol. (I don't have the time or resources to reverse engineer it.) 3. This scanner uses a protocol that hpiod can't be taught about, because it involves Microsoft-proprietary code, or some such nonsense. Can anybody say? All information gratefully received - I really need to know very soon whether or not to return this beast to the shop. (Recommendations for cheap, compact MFPs that do work with Linux also appreciated!) Thanks, Tim. -- Libra Aries Books 9 The Broadway, Mill Road, Cambridge CB1 3AH Tel: (01223) 412 411 http://www.libra-aries-books.co.uk/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ HPLIP-Help mailing list HPLIP-Help@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hplip-help
