Bug 918238 - RFE: install scanner driver packages if supported hardware is detected
Summary: RFE: install scanner driver packages if supported hardware is detected
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: sane-backends
Version: rawhide
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Nils Philippsen
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
: 844514 987680 (view as bug list)
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2013-03-05 18:37 UTC by todd_lewis
Modified: 2016-07-29 16:36 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2016-07-29 16:36:34 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description todd_lewis 2013-03-05 18:37:10 UTC
Description of problem: no package requires sane-backends-drivers-scanners


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible: Always


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install fedora 18
2. Install simple-scan or xsane or anything that requires sane
3. attempt to scan
  
Actual results: "No scanner found. Make sure your scanner is connected and turned on" or words to that effect.


Expected results: The back end should find the scanner and scan.


Additional info: I had installed Fedora 18, simple-scan and xsane, but simple-scan and xsane could not operate the Epson scanner, although /usr/bin/sane-find-scanner would show it as available. The actual scanner drivers are contained in the sane-backends-drivers-scanners package, but since no other packages have a dependency on that package, the drivers are not installed unless the user knows to install it explicitly. It seem that installing simple-scan or xsane or anything that uses sane would cause the necessary back-end packages to be installed as well.

$ rpm -q --whatrequires sane-backends-drivers-scanners
no package requires sane-backends-drivers-scanners
$ cat /etc/redhat-release 
Fedora release 18 (Spherical Cow)

Comment 1 copycat 2013-06-11 14:00:52 UTC
Since i updated to Fedora18, i had the same problem with my Canon Pixma MP 220 printer/scanner. 

In my case installing sane-backends-devel (next to sane-backends, sane-backends-drivers and sane-backends-libs) solved the problem. 
It isn't listed as a dependency, but strace showed that xsane tried to find the libraries in /usr/lib that weren't there. 

Hope this helps

Comment 2 Nils Philippsen 2013-06-11 16:19:14 UTC
(In reply to copycat from comment #1)
> Since i updated to Fedora18, i had the same problem with my Canon Pixma MP
> 220 printer/scanner. 
> 
> In my case installing sane-backends-devel (next to sane-backends,
> sane-backends-drivers and sane-backends-libs) solved the problem.

That's odd because sane-backends-devel doesn't contain any hardware-specific files... Did installing the -devel subpackage pull in other packages as dependencies?

> It isn't listed as a dependency, but strace showed that xsane tried to find
> the libraries in /usr/lib that weren't there. 

Which files exactly were that?

Thanks!

Comment 3 copycat 2013-06-12 13:02:26 UTC
Well this is very embarrassing... Sorry, i must have overlooked that sane-backends-drivers-scanners was not installed at first in my case. Because of that, /usr/lib64/sane/ did not exist/ contained no libraries. 

Now that i've completely un- and reinstalled all of the concerning packages, i saw that by installing the devel package, the scanner drivers must have been installed as well and i overlooked it on the console. 

After removing all sane packages and xsane, i reinstalled the packages in the following order:
xsane (requires xsane-common and sane-backend-libs), then
sane-backends-drivers-scanners and sane-backends (now /usr/lib64/sane and all the libraries are there) 

After this the scanner was detected by xsane and works just fine. 
Sorry for the mix-up!

Comment 4 Nils Philippsen 2013-06-13 08:43:54 UTC
Phew, that "just" leaves the problem of scanner drivers not being installed if xsane/sane-backends/... is not installed during the system installation.

To me, the best option seems to be letting udev/PackageKit prompt users to install the appropriate driver packages if supported hardware is detected. This may require changes in other packages ((gnome-)PackageKit, rpm(?)) so this may take some time.

Comment 5 Reartes Guillermo 2013-10-03 15:38:49 UTC
I installed F19, and then xsane, sane. But i did not scan anything.
Some time passed and i tried to scan.

For some reason no scanner was detected.

Then i figured out that sane-backends was not installed, so i installed it.

Then i got from sane-find-scanner:

could not fetch string descriptor: Pipe error
could not fetch string descriptor: Pipe error
found USB scanner (vendor=0x04a9 [Canon], product=0x1905 [CanoScan]) at libusb:001:003
  # Your USB scanner was (probably) detected. It may or may not be supported by
  # SANE. Try scanimage -L and read the backend's manpage.

So i also was missing the sane-backends-drivers-scanners :-)

Since i performed several yum operations, i was surprised that i did not end up with everything needed for scanning installed. xsane, sane-backends, etc.

For example:

# cat /var/log/yum.log | grep -i sane | grep -i install
Sep 10 17:42:14 Installed: xsane-common-0.999-3.fc19.x86_64
Sep 10 17:42:14 Installed: xsane-0.999-3.fc19.x86_64
Oct 03 12:17:04 Installed: sane-backends-1.0.23-18.fc19.x86_64
Oct 03 12:25:36 Installed: sane-backends-drivers-scanners-1.0.23-18.fc19.x86_64

# cat /var/log/yum.log | grep -i sane-backends | grep -i update
Sep 10 13:38:52 Updated: sane-backends-libs-1.0.23-13.fc19.x86_64
Sep 12 11:57:43 Updated: sane-backends-libs-1.0.23-18.fc19.x86_64

Also i checked yum grouplist and there is no 'Scanning Tools' or similar. I think that such a group will be useful to avoid to having to install every package manually. Also it could be selected at install time as an add-on, if i am not mistaken.

Comment 6 Jaromír Končický 2014-04-03 13:54:00 UTC
*** Bug 844514 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7 Jaromír Končický 2014-04-03 13:56:45 UTC
*** Bug 987680 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8 Branko Grubić 2014-04-07 18:51:17 UTC
I agree that best way is to prompt for installing additional drivers if needed, but that feature is too complicated. This is broken, and most people don't know what is going on, and why their scanner doesn't work on fedora, and works on most other distros. So please update package dependencies and make it install additional drivers "by-default". 

Or as another option if it is easier to do, make a script which will run first time program/s starts and tell the user that some scanners need additional drivers which are part of 'sane-backends-drivers-scanner' so they can experiment and install additional drivers to see if their scanner is supported. (This way "we" can save some space if additional drivers aren't needed)

Comment 9 Nils Philippsen 2016-07-29 16:36:34 UTC
Meanwhile, driver packages are pulled in by weak dependencies, so I consider this RFE as obsolete.


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