[sf-lug] (forw) Re: (forw) Re: Xsane can't see an HP Laserjet 1536dnf MFP scanner / printer

[Rick Moen]

Looks like Bobbie dropped unexpectedly into private mail, again.

I don't think it necessary to further repeat the points about how much
better _without_ more money one can do using patience, a bit of
research, and reliance on Freecycle / Craigslist, etc. to find decent
used gear.  And _then_ those scarce dollars don't need to be frittered
away on inkjet supplies, so you win both ways.

----- Forwarded message from Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com> -----

Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2018 07:59:00 -0700
From: Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com>
To: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
Subject: Re: [sf-lug] (forw) Re: Xsane can't see an HP Laserjet 1536dnf MFP
	scanner / printer
Reply-To: bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com
Organization: 0
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_00,SPF_PASS
	autolearn=ham version=3.3.1



On 07/31/2018 08:39 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> 
    Big snip
> Imagine AmigaOS were open source with an open source application
> ecosystem.  You wouldn't have needed to 'dig for disks'.  Not even in
> the 1980s/1990s.

            I imagined it and moved to Linux, Mandriva in
2006, on the advice of a friend now gone beyond.
    I dallied with a lot of other distributions including Knoppix,
but Mandriva until 2011 when they turned
    out  a version that could not run on my hardware.  Today with
nearly 10 years more information I might
   have been able to fix it but...
        Anyway the Amiga has online repositories with mirrors
called Aminet.  It had lots of share-ware and
   translations of Unix tools and utilities to the AmigaOS.  I went
looking for the Wiki entry but did not find
it but found <http://aminet.net/>.  The Amiga was of course
proprietary but published manuals covering
every aspect of writing software for the machine.   My favorite
share-ware text editor was Textra written
in Forth (actually fourth but we didn't have enough characters in the
name field at the time).  Kate comes
close but not quite there especially as KDE's coders keep changing the
DE system.
> 
>>> proprietary driver set, but that's the usual situation.  Also, few
>>> Linux distros wish to take on that headache, anyway.)
>>          Actually I have not had to download any drivers in quite some time.
> That doesn't contradict what I said.
> 
> Obviously if you've already fetched the 'iscan' proprietary SANE backend
> from Avasys, then you do not need to repeatedly re-download it.  I
> cannot fathom what sort of misapprehension of my post might have lead
> you to believe I suggested otherwise.
        Oh that was many installs back that I was downloading
from Avasys and I have
 taken no special precautions to bring that bit of code forward.
Suddenly the printer
and the scanner were working better because some one had caught up with the
multi-function device.  Presently I merely give it the scanners USB
address and the same
with the printer's Ethernet address.
> 
> Of course, if SANE revises its application interface for communicating
> with scanner back-ends, which is always a possibility as the world moves
> on (see, for comparison, what happened to almost all winmodem drivers),
> then you had better hope that Avasys bothers to up-rev and re-release
> its 'iscan' proprietary SANE backend for your benefit.  And, in that
> area, the record about maintained proprietary drivers for long-EOLed
> hardware is... not good.
> 
> 
>> Simple Scan and Xsane can be configured to use it and as I mentioned the
>> biggest problem was getting the software to choose the right input.
> I'm happy for you, on that.  But you seem to have ignored my point.
> 
> 
>>      Yes all very ideal for people with adequate income.
> Funny thing about that:  I used to say to my wife, Deirdre, when we were
> going through long-term unemployment and she proposed something fiscally
> unwise:  'We're too poor to be that stupid.'
> 
> Used hardware is a thing.  And, if you are careful and patient and
> _bother to understand hardware_, you can avoid buying cheap junk.
> 
> 
>>      But I reject the idea that the any of the printers were shoddy.
        They were all built for relatively light use to a price
point. If I had been well and working
and chose to live in a house rather than a studio apartment I might
have gotten a laser printer
but when I was buying it there was no suitable laser printer for the
space within my price range.
> You have a right to your opinion.  But, as the late Sen. Moynihan
> observe, you don't have a right to your own facts.  The facts I laid out
> about your (and Christian's) multifunction devices are undeniable.  It
> is my _opinion_ that they are clearly shoddy in at least fundamental
> design, if not implementation.  And, I happen to have a very long
> history of evaluating hardware for use on Linux, including doing so as
> my profession.
> 
> But you can (of course!) reject my opinions as you will.  You don't even
> need to send me a figurative telegram when you do it.  ;->
> 
> 
>>      As for replacing the Epson that is highly unlikely as
>> I don't have the time left to worry about that.
> Well, _now_ it's worth about $40.  (To somebody, not me. ;-> )
        I wouldn't spend $40 on it now myself.  But it still
works which is sometimes important to me.
        I also have much less disposable income now than when I bought it.
> 
> When new back around 2010, maybe you could have raised $200 for it.
> 
> And, in 2010, I'd not have been willing to spend even $40 for it,
> because the cost of ink-cartridge supplies was totally unjustifiable.
> The absurd scanner-driver situation is IMO merely bad icing on a very
> bad cake.
    When it was new I could not afford $200 for a printer.
    I got it on sale when Office Depot was still in the old Sears
building at
Masonic and Geary.

        bliss



----- End forwarded message -----