debian libsane-common, dependencies, and canon LIDE-120

Question

I'm running debian-stable (stretch).

I have a canon LIDE-120, a scanner which in debian seems to require libsane-common-1.0.27, which is currently available only in sid (debian-unstable).

So my scanner is currently not usable. I wonder whether that can be fixed in the short run, without too much disruption of my debian system.

I have to confess that I've installed some packages from unstable (e.g. guile-2.2.3), but only ones without a large number of dependencies.

The approach I considered in this case was via including the unstable repository in my apt/sources and using "pinning", but I chickened out - there were a lot of dependencies and hence an install of this packaged promised to install a lot of additional packages. (And if my memory is correct, apt threatened to do things like delete various packages - or maybe "metapackages" - like gnome).

So I wonder: is there another approach? Or must I just wait for this package to get into "stretch/backports" before I can use my scanner?

Thanks, george

Answer 1

You always have the option to install from source. In general, this would mean

• remove tha SANE packages from your system
• download the sources for the backend and the frontends
• do make && sudo make install

However, be careful with dependencies.