Kodak's Official Version Of Why They Do Not Supply Drivers For Linux

[daytonageeks]

This letter was sent me today after many requests for a straight answer as to why Kodak does not support Linux with drivers for their 5100 AIO printer........

Greetings james ,

Thank you for your recent visit to the Kodak Web site and question about Linux drivers for the Kodak EasyShare 5100 All-in-One printer.

We are quite concerned over your experience, and are sorry for any inconvenience or frustration this has caused you. We will do our best to help you.

Thank you for visiting the Kodak web site and your inquiry regarding Kodak support for Linux operating system with Kodak products. Currently there is no support for Kodak products on the Linux OS by Kodak. Our Kodak software engineers are well aware of the Linux operating system. We appreciate your concern for this operating system and interest in enabling Kodak products to work with it.

Kodak continues to follow the Linux Operating system. We noted, as far back as March 30, 1999, that Linux announced support of a Linux-USB driver that only worked with UHCI controllers. Since UHCI controllers represent only a portion of the PC market, Linux-USB was very limited and was very preliminary even six months ago.

We had the same situation in the past with preliminary Microsoft-USB drivers and now version 2 USB as well. Sometimes, the availability of these drivers simply does not match our product release dates. Even after the support is there, as is the case with Microsoft version 1, we still have to update our Kodak web site with the latest driver patches to keep in step with Microsoft-USB patches. In addition, Kodak has worked very closely with the USB IF Working Group on the USB standard participating in numerous USB "Plug Fests" where we test out our hardware and software on a variety of computers with various "chip sets".

In the past, prior to the release of Microsoft Windows 98, Kodak worked intensely with the staff at the Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) to achieve "Windows Logo". This was no small feat with the USB technology forming the basis of the DVC323 and later products and the Windows 98 operating system. As a result, the DVC323 passed all USB compliance testing with Windows 98. I am not sure that there is such a rigorous test standard for Linux-USB. If not, this has serious implications on our technical support staff and the cost for providing a Linux-USB driver.

We understand the issue with devices based on the CPiA chip set and once again are faced with a problem with Linux-USB support in that isochronous transfer is not yet fully implemented. There is a distinct difference when a company claims "USB support" it does not always mean "full USB support". Kodak relies on full support for UHCI and OHCI host controllers as well as their corresponding USB transfer types. The support for this simply is not there yet.
As Linux-USB becomes fully implemented and released with the Linux OS, Kodak may investigate the technical feasibility of developing Linux-USB drivers for future products. I am confident that our technical teams would be able to provide support once Kodak analyzed the business case for such support.

We are glad to be of service and are here for you if you need us in the future. Please reply to us "with history" if you need to respond to this email.

For more information, you can visit the FAQ section in our website at www.kodak.com/go/aiosupport. You will find helpful tips and upgrades.

Best Regards,

Nancy R
Kodak Information and Technical Support
http://www.kodak.com/go/aio

Now, with this in hand, will someone please tell me if this makes sense, or is doubletalk?
Thanks and Blessings,
Daytonageeks (Jim)

[ciascuno]

Actually, I'd just like to bump this as I'd be very interested to hear the opinion of someone with a better understanding of kernel USB support than I have - how valid are their concerns?

Thanks to daytonageeks for successfully obtaining this detailed response!

[greenstar]

Unfortunately, I don't have the answer, but I am interested to see if anyone else does.

Great job in obtaining a response, daytonageeks. Persistence pays off.

Greenstar

[ciascuno]

After a post onto the linux-usb list, pointing to your message and providing some excerpts, a couple of the devs very helpfully commented - thanks to balbi and greg k-h particularly: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.usb.general/8221

The general consensus seems to be that these suggestions are rather outdated and Kodak hardware has no difficulty with the USB part of the process on Linux. This seems to be a frequently trotted-out reply (signed by different support staff) - see, for example, the following:
http://osdir.com/ml/multimedia.gphot.../msg00003.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-501652.html
http://jaredrobinson.com/blog/?p=105
http://castor.igrin.co.nz/pipermail/...06/000039.html
http://linux.derkeiler.com/Newsgroup...4-03/0104.html
- the earliest of which is dated March 2004 and I wouldn't be surprised if there are copies even before that.

[greenstar]

If you still need help getting Ubuntu to recognize your camera, try the suggestion given here. If that doesn't work, get a USB card reader for your memory card and upload pictures that way. You can get one for under $10.

HTH.
Greenstar

[Yoshokatana]

Hey, I'd like to weigh in on this.

I'm a tech support guy at Kodak, and I'm working in the printers division. I was wondering about Kodak's stance on linux after reading that letter, and talked to my supervisor. Well, now he and I are working to get Kodak to be more linux-friendly, both internally (using SugarDRM and Zimbra rather than LotusNotes) and externally.

Awhile ago, I read a blog post by one of our dev guys out in San Diego, that he was working on linux drivers. My supervisor knows him personally, so he'll try to get in touch and hopefully see what's happening with them. We know that the drivers have been working since March, so they're hopefully doing internal testing right now. I think the dev team that works on the OSX driver are contributing the relevent *nix-friendly code.

I'll post whenever the dev guy gets back to me. Hopefully they'll release the beta code if I ask.

[jdzitro]

THANKS Yohokatana! Looking forward to it.

[jakie18064]

I am glad to hear that Kodak is working on a driver to use with Ubuntu.

I was just on the www.winehq.org site to see if there was a way to use the printer with Ubuntu and Wine. No such luck.

I have one PC that is capable of booting to XP or Ubuntu. There are two reasons that I still have XP on a PC. One is the Kodak 5300 printer and the other is work. I need to be using XP or Vista as my home operating system so I can remote into my desktop PC.

If Kodak provides a driver for the printer, I'll just forgot about logging into my work PC from home. Who needs to check up on work when they are home anyway?

[mgmiller]

I need to be using XP or Vista as my home operating system so I can remote into my desktop PC.

I have been remote desk-toping into windows for the last few years without any problems.

Applictions > Internet > Terminal Server Client

To connect to a WinXP pro box that is running its standard remote desktop, configure the one in Ubuntu as follows:

GENERAL TAB:
Computer: you can use the ip address or if it has an assigned domain name, you could use that. Just put in the number, no www or anything. Same for the domain name, you would enter foo.com, not www.foo.com

Protocol: RDPv5

User Name: Whatever the user name you use on the windows machine you want to log onto is.

You can leave the rest of the fields blank.


DISPLAY TAB:

I had the best results with "Use specified screen size" I have mine set to 1280x960, but make sure its a size that's smaller than the resolution of your Ubuntu machine.

Colors:
Use specified color depth....High Color (16 bit)


LOCAL RESOURCES TAB:

The only one that's important here is the Keyboard. Make sure it is for your keyboard, mine is set to "en-us".

PROGRAMS TAB:

You don't have to set anything here


PERFORMANCE TAB:

This can also be left unchanged, although "Enable bitmap caching" seems to speed things up a bit for me.


That's it, just click connect and you should see your windows logon screen with the user name you entered in the first tab. Just type in the appropriate password and away you go.


Exiting the session is the same as from a windows RDP session. Click Start and then Disconnect.

[jaypmcwilliams]

In response to daytonageeks letter from kodak- It is TRULY double talk explanation of why they DO NOT want to work with LINUX. After deep research, we've found that the LINUX kernel DOES in fact recognize the printer hardware & the protocols needed to communicate with it. However, they said it themselves, "MICROSOFT WINDOWS". They have an EXTENSIVE contract for ******* licensing but Kodak wanted & needed to keep a corner in the market so they went with a design that would specifically PREVENT development, by others, trying to circumvent paying for Kodak. Kodak actually had issues like Microsoft, "OURS ONLY & PAY FOR OURS OR YOU DON'T EXIST" theory. Texas Instruments did the EXACT same think with there All-in-one media card readers. Devolopers convinced TI to open up. Yet still fight. We have notified Kodak of there yearly lose of MILLIONS from the LINUX community. ATI learned from it's mistakes & now AMD holds them. WOW! now ATI's are wonderful. We are going to try a Kodak ESP series All-in-One & if it fails, so will Kodak sales! We will keep you posted on this. Thank You, Jay