[ILUG] [Fwd: create a /dev/lp0 Parallel port retrospctively]

[Ciaran Mulloy]

Hi Paul,
I hope you don't mind I forwarded this email to the ILUG.
Ciaran

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	create a /dev/lp0 Parallel port retrospctively
Date: 	Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:32:41 +0000
From: 	Ciaran Mulloy <cmulloy at irishbroadband.net>
To: 	ILUG <ilug at linux.ie>



Hi,
I recently upgraded my PC which I ended up building myself, I was a 
compromise in getting the very latest features and above all: speed!
The ASUS P5KC motherboard does not have any parallel or serial ports. As 
I still intended using a parallel laser printer that I purchased a new 
cartridge as well as wanting to use my old Palm Pilot which has a serial 
port I decided to add a dual function serial port (2) and parallel port 
card as the new motherboard has USB only ports.
The PCI card I purchased is is model 4079T manufactured by Sunnix 
Corporation www.sunix.com.tw. The model spec is here: 
http://www.sunix.com.tw/it/en/Product_Detail.php?class_a_id=0&sid=366

My issue is that I need to create a /dev/lp0 and somehow link it to the 
parport module.


At present when I do a ls -l /dev/lp* I get the following: ls: /dev/lp*: 
No such file or directory


I have installed the card and this is what I get when I do a lspci:
05:01.0 Serial controller: Timedia Technology Co Ltd PCI2S550 (Dual 
16550 UART) (rev 01)

So I take it that it sees the serial controller.

sudo more /proc/tty/driver/serial provides the following info:

serinfo:1.0 driver revision:
0: uart:16550A port:000003F8 irq:4 tx:0 rx:0
1: uart:16550A port:0000EC00 irq:17 tx:0 rx:0
2: uart:16550A port:0000EC08 irq:17 tx:0 rx:0
3: uart:unknown port:000002E8 irq:3


This looks like the ports have been allocated but are not setup as for 
example there is no baud rate shown.


When I do an lsmod I get the following results (among others)
parport_pc                 41896  0
parport                       44172  3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
lp                                 15048  0




I am using Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 64-bit. Question I find that a number of 
applications cause problems in the 64 bit version, do you think I should 
downgrade to the 32 bit version of Ubuntu? Will I lose performance?

I am using an Intel Dual Core 2 64 bit processor.

I have been fiddeling around with trying to understand some of the stuff 
myself.

The Linux 2.4 Parallel Port Subsystem documentation gives some guidance:

:
http://people.redhat.com/twaugh/parport/html/parportguide.html

Also I suspected that the parport module wasn't being loaded. When I 
went to look at the following directory I found the parport modules are 
called something slightly different: instead of parport.o they have a ko 
suffix.


ciaran at ciaran-twin:/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/drivers/parport$ 
ls -l
total 180
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14056 2007-12-18 07:11 parport_ax88796.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10624 2007-12-18 07:11 parport_cs.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 64160 2007-12-18 07:11 parport.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 63464 2007-12-18 07:11 parport_pc.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15152 2007-12-18 07:11 parport_serial.ko
ciaran at ciaran-twin:/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/drivers/parport$


I would welcome any suggestions or help.

Many thanks in advance.
Ciaran