https://blog.lazy-evaluation.net/enContents © 2025 <a href="mailto:dzu@member.fsf.org">Detlev Zundel</a> Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:16:34 GMTNikola (getnikola.com)http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rsshttps://blog.lazy-evaluation.net/posts/linux/free-software-empowerment.html?pk_campaign=feedDetlev Zundel<div><p> #+BEGIN_COMMENT .. title: Empowerment Through Free Software .. author: Detlev Zundel .. date: 2025-04-03 23:15:39 CET .. slug: free-software-empowerment .. tags: debian, linux, fsf, gnome, simple-scan .. category: .. link: .. description: .. type: text #+END_COMMENTg </p> <div style="text-align:center" class="imageblock" id="orgc10d065"> <div id="org22be488" class="figure"> <p><img src="https://blog.lazy-evaluation.net/images/fsf-member-badge.png" alt="fsf-member-badge.png" title="FSF Member Badge" align="middle" width="250"> </p> </div> </div> <p> Due to having ordered a new multi-function printer, I find myself wanting a feature in my software stack, which seems not to be available. But as I use a <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en">Free Software</a> GNU/Linux system, it is possible to modify and extend the software on every level, so I decide to find out if I can fix the problem myself. </p> <p> Specifically, the new printer has a document feeder for the scanner, so that I can feed a whole stack of documents to it without manual intervention. Unfortunately, it is not able to do both side scans, as this feature is only available at a much higher price tag. But double-sided scanning can be done in two batches by first scanning the front sides, and then in a second batch the back sides. The scanned pages then need to be reordered in a post processing step to group the corresponding front- and back sides. Already with my own scanner, I am pretty happy using the default scan software from the GNOME desktop, i.e. <a href="https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/simple-scan">simple-scan</a>. I used the GUI to remove pages and reorder them manually, but I did not find such a functionality that I would now like to use. So the topic for today is how to make this work, ideally before the printer arrives. </p> <p> I believe this to be a very good example of how empowering Free Software is, and so I decided to document all my steps in order to show how I approach this task, which is completely inaccessible for people working with non-free software. Actually I invite you to reproduce the steps on your own distribution to get a feeling on how easy (or difficult?) it is to work on an arbitrary aspect of the whole system. </p> <p> So fire up your terminal and follow along! Expect some transcripts! </p> <p><a href="https://blog.lazy-evaluation.net/posts/linux/free-software-empowerment.html?pk_campaign=feed">Read more…</a> (26 min remaining to read)</p></div>debianfsfgnomelinuxsimple-scanhttps://blog.lazy-evaluation.net/posts/linux/free-software-empowerment.htmlThu, 03 Apr 2025 21:15:39 GMT