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From: Arthur Entlich on 12 Jan 2010 04:38
I have my doubts that MS would try to interfere with driver availability
for Linux for several reasons. 1) they have gotten in enough trouble
over the years in the past for trying to derail competition and they
can't afford more investigations and fines 2) it would inspire even more
open source backlash from independent sources 3) If one would expect
any one company to be involved in such a plan, HP is about the closest
one gets to MS as a partner.

I suspect the reason you see Linux support of HP peripherals is simply
because they sell a LOT of them, and so there is greater traction to
build drivers for their products. Its just like what products have
viruses built for them... it is the main stream products, greatest hit
for least sweat.

Too bad about Visioneer, they commonly sold inexpensive lines of
scanners and I own a number of them (believe I have 4), all out of
commission due to driver lack.

Art


If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/

TJ wrote:
> Arthur Entlich wrote:
>>
>> I also think the the Windows logo program which is supposed to
>> identify a product designed to work with a specific OS from Microsoft
>> should require the peripheral manufacturer to offer a certain number
>> of years of driver support to get the logo designation, even carrying
>> it through several OSs, but in my discussions with Microsoft about
>> this they were concerned that as it is, the industry looks at
>> Microsoft as having too much control over the market, and it could
>> just lead to more DOJ (Department of Justice)law suits, or equivalent
>> in other places, etc.
>>
> <snip>
>>
>> Lastly, keep Linux in mind. Much of the so-called obsolete hardware
>> will run on Linus, in some cases quite well. Linux being open source
>> has many people constantly writing code to allow it to run on and with
>> older machines, by striping away all the "junk" that makes the
>> equipment slow down.
>>
>> You can find all sorts of open source peripheral drivers which will
>> run with Linux OS.
>>
> There is a theory in the Linux community that in the past "exclusivity"
> contracts with Microsoft prevented some manufacturers from supplying
> drivers for Linux, lest they lose the ability to label their products as
> "Windows-whatever ready." I personally have no evidence of this, but it
> doesn't sound very far-fetched if you ask me.
>
> Whatever the reason, some printer brands are not very well supported
> when it comes to Linux. This is particularly true of the multi-function
> machines. With some brands, the only way to get an open-source driver is
> for somebody to do some reverse-engineering. While the printer part of a
> multi-function device may work using the reverse-engineered driver for
> another printer, the scanner is usually quite another story. There is
> some evidence that that trend is changing, but for older products it is
> still true.
>
> If looking for a product to work with Linux, it's tough to beat HP. I
> don't know of any HP printer that doesn't have a fully-functional driver
> available in Linux, save for the very latest models - and it isn't long
> after *they* come out before a Linux driver appears. While HP doesn't
> write the Linux drivers itself, it fully supports the open-source
> project that does.
>
> BTW, the Visioneer scanner I mentioned in another post to this thread
> does not work with Linux. It uses some kind of oddball chipset. There
> once was a project to develop a Linux driver for this chipset, but it
> fell through before anything could come of it. However, my HP
> Officejet's scanner *is* fully functional in Linux.
>
> TJ
From: TJ on 13 Jan 2010 11:47
Arthur Entlich wrote:
> I have my doubts that MS would try to interfere with driver availability
> for Linux for several reasons. 1) they have gotten in enough trouble
> over the years in the past for trying to derail competition and they
> can't afford more investigations and fines 2) it would inspire even more
> open source backlash from independent sources 3) If one would expect
> any one company to be involved in such a plan, HP is about the closest
> one gets to MS as a partner.
>
Could be that it is a rumor that has been repeated often enough to wear
the undeserved mantle of "fact." There's a lot of that going around, and
not just where Microsoft is concerned.

> I suspect the reason you see Linux support of HP peripherals is simply
> because they sell a LOT of them, and so there is greater traction to
> build drivers for their products. Its just like what products have
> viruses built for them... it is the main stream products, greatest hit
> for least sweat.
>
One of the rumors I was just talking about. This is not the place for a
Windows/Linux security debate, so I will not pursue it beyond saying
that my belief is that there are more viruses and such written for
Windows not so much because it is a bigger target as it has been an
easier one. There is a difference.

> Too bad about Visioneer, they commonly sold inexpensive lines of
> scanners and I own a number of them (believe I have 4), all out of
> commission due to driver lack.
>
Mine is a OneTouch 7600 USB model. I bought it at Office Max for $20 US
after rebate, something like 9 years ago. It's a good scanner, and still
works fine. It uses something called the E3 chipset, and work on a Linux
driver for it fizzled in early 2003. The Visioneer website only lists
downloads as "Windows 2000 compatible," and nothing for XP and above.
However, in my search for information to refresh my memory I stumbled
across a page in the Windows 7 Compatibility Center that lists it as
compatible with both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows 7, with "no
action required." Apparently, a Windows 7 driver is included in the OS,
though I really have no personal confirmation of this. I seriously doubt
that my aging, six-year-old machine (Athlon XP 1900+ processor, 2GB
DDR266 RAM, nVidia Geforce FX5500 AGP video card) would handle Windows 7
very well - though it feels nice and snappy with Linux.

Perhaps, though, there is a driver for one or more of your Visioneer
scanners embedded somewhere deep in Windows 7.

TJ
From: Arthur Entlich on 14 Jan 2010 08:44

TJ wrote:
> Arthur Entlich wrote:

>> I suspect the reason you see Linux support of HP peripherals is simply
>> because they sell a LOT of them, and so there is greater traction to
>> build drivers for their products. Its just like what products have
>> viruses built for them... it is the main stream products, greatest hit
>> for least sweat.
>>
> One of the rumors I was just talking about. This is not the place for a
> Windows/Linux security debate, so I will not pursue it beyond saying
> that my belief is that there are more viruses and such written for
> Windows not so much because it is a bigger target as it has been an
> easier one. There is a difference.

It does appear that Unix (which the Mac OSs are based upon) and Linux
(similarly) are less vulnerable to viruses, but I do also believe that
part of the game is trying to find the best route of epidemic and that
means finding the largest subject pool that is vulnerable. Since MS
windows still owns about 90% of the market worldwide, that does make it
a handsome target.
>
>> Too bad about Visioneer, they commonly sold inexpensive lines of
>> scanners and I own a number of them (believe I have 4), all out of
>> commission due to driver lack.
>>
> Mine is a OneTouch 7600 USB model. I bought it at Office Max for $20 US
> after rebate, something like 9 years ago. It's a good scanner, and still
> works fine. It uses something called the E3 chipset, and work on a Linux
> driver for it fizzled in early 2003. The Visioneer website only lists
> downloads as "Windows 2000 compatible," and nothing for XP and above.
> However, in my search for information to refresh my memory I stumbled
> across a page in the Windows 7 Compatibility Center that lists it as
> compatible with both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows 7, with "no
> action required." Apparently, a Windows 7 driver is included in the OS,
> though I really have no personal confirmation of this. I seriously doubt
> that my aging, six-year-old machine (Athlon XP 1900+ processor, 2GB
> DDR266 RAM, nVidia Geforce FX5500 AGP video card) would handle Windows 7
> very well - though it feels nice and snappy with Linux.
>

Yes, my scanners wee also dirt cheap after rebates, also. The Q.C. was
not great and some were ill-converged, and they kept on replacing them
and telling me to keep the old one (shows you how much they were
actually worth).

In regard to Win 7 and your 6 year old machine... it should actually run
on it. Win 7 (32 bit) requires basically a 1 Gig processor or higher, 1
gig memory or more, and the graphics card may require you shut down the
most graphic intensive elements. Win 7 did try to make things as
inclusive as possible. It is a lot more forgiving than Vista was. I
won;t say it will be "snappy" under it, but almost all netbooks with
Atom processors and 1 gig of memory will run full versions of Win 7
reasonably well.

> Perhaps, though, there is a driver for one or more of your Visioneer
> scanners embedded somewhere deep in Windows 7.

I'll eventually take a look. I am putting a Win 7 machine together
which is of similar vintage to yours, which I want to run dual boot for
XP and Win 7.


Art


>
> TJ
From: Brian Rumary on 16 Jan 2010 13:13
In article <TJP2n.5142$%P5.3621(a)newsfe21.iad>, Arthur Entlich wrote:
> An example is Bob Hamrick's Vue Scan which is a 3rd party product for
> sale, which somehow got around a lot of the proprietary SCSI and other
> interface issues.
>
> I'm not sure what the current state of affairs is with that product today.

See the Vuescan website at: www.hamrick.com

Brian Rumary, UK



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