SANE use of libieee1284 for parallel port devices

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Hi Ralph,

On 2022-03-25 17:23, Ralph Little wrote:
> Hi,
> After recently reviewing our support for parallel support devices, it
> seem that the current Ubuntu package generation uses the build
> option --enable-parport-directio which disables libieee1284 library
> support.
> 
> There are many advantages to using the library rather than hitting
> port devices directly (permissions, stable platform, sane device
> names) and my tests seem to indicate that it is pretty stable and
> reliable: https://gitlab.com/sane-project/backends/-/issues/578
> 
> After asking around it seems that using this option was felt to lead
> to a more stable experience but that was probably *many* years ago
> and much has changed.
> libieee1284 hasn't been updated in ages and it seems to have a stable
> API. I will update the SANE PPA to switch this option off and will
> test with other devices that I have.
> 
> I appreciate that this is a fairly low priority item. :D

Want to mention that sane-backends is packaged at Debian, so you may 
want to submit a Debian bug to reach the package maintainer:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=sane-backends

With that said, and since any change affects the Ubuntu users by 
default, gathering input here too is probably wise.

-- 
Cheers,

Gunnar Hjalmarsson
https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj