Please upgrade package dependencies to Python 3

[Krotow]

Just installed SULDR driver for work with Samsung C460W printer from Linux Mint 22.2. That went fine. However all GUI package and some other package install fail with unmet dependencies to python 2.7 error

Code Select Expand

$ sudo apt install suld-scantopc
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 suld-scantopc : Depends: python (>= 2.7) but it is not installable
                 Depends: python (< 3.0) but it is not installable
                 Depends: python-imaging-sane (>= 1.1.7) but it is not installable or
                          python-sane (>= 1.1.7) but it is not installable
                 Depends: python-pypdf (>= 1.13) but it is not installable
                 Depends: python-pysnmp4 but it is not installable
                 Depends: python-six but it is not installable

This obviously happen because Debian removed Python 2.x support 3 years ago. However it would be time to finally upgrade SULDR package dependencies too. Because Python 2.x was obsoleted eons ago. And most importantly, due to latest Microsoft Windows 11 shenanigans we can expect large user influx in Linux desktop realm. These people has SULDR compatible Samsung/HP printers as well. If supplies are available, printers usually outlive 3+ OS generations. Would be nice to not break user experience impression for newcomers.

[bchemnet]

The dependencies have not been updated because the GUIs do not work with new versions.  The last update to the GUI from Samsung was over a decade ago, and the issue is worse than just python 2.7 dependency: it also requires Qt4, which is similarly obsolete and removed from Debian, and the GUI depends on a library with a known major, unpatched security flaw.  I have tested the programs with updated Qt and python, and they load but ultimately fail to work correctly.

I would like to achieve the goal that you describe, especially because I have seen a large increase in traffic to this repository over the past few months so there clearly is still interest in using these printers.  But the software is simply too old and closed source, so I do not have a solution.

The scantopc scripts could be updated, but would require a major rewrite because the core python library used was not ported to python 3.  So far nobody has been motivated to put in that effort since the original authors moved on.

The other problem that is coming up soon is CUPS 3.  When that is finally released, likely within the next year (although it has been "within a year" for nearly 4 years now), the drivers will also stop working due to a fundamental change in how CUPS will interact with printers.  Obviously it will take some time for CUPS 3 to work its way into enough distributions to have a major impact, but there is a definite end of life coming for the Samsung printers even if the hardware is still good, except for people with the considerable expertise to configure their printer without any GUI or CUPS.