Has anyone got a parallel port printer working in F16?

[cmsps]

Mine worked fine with F14. It still does if I hook it up to windoze. system-config-printer sometimes sees it and sometimes not. Wondering if the port itself is broken.

TIA

[PatMcLJr]

yea, that's a bit strange.

I have had better luck if before I switch on my box I have the printer already on.
I have seen where the system-config-printer and the print dialogs can take a few seconds to show all the printers connected.

Do you get any different results with http://localhost:631/

[cmsps]

Thanks. I get the same result, that is no offer of a parallel port printer, with the web interface to CUPS.

I take it you are using F16?

Thanks

[RupertPupkin]

Are you sure the parport_pc module is loaded? If not, and if the printer drivers are not installed (e.g. the hpijs package for HP printers) then the printer won't show up in the CUPS web interface. I have an HP Deskjet 5550 attached to the parallel port on my F16 system, and it works fine. I can see it in the CUPS web interface:

[PatMcLJr]

yes on th f16 but a few years back I got on these el-cheap'o print servers and it's been just great, and now my new mb doesn't have a lpt port, not one I have the connector for.

This was a problem a few versions back too, you would have to install paraport or something like that to get the parallel port working.

[cmsps]

@RupertPupkin Thanks for letting me know of your success with F16.

parport_pc is loaded and hpijs etc are installed. FWIW my printer is a Deskjet 720C. F16 detects it but can't drive it.

[RupertPupkin]

Originally Posted by cmsps

parport_pc is loaded and hpijs etc are installed. FWIW my printer is a Deskjet 720C. F16 detects it but can't drive it.

Make sure the /dev/lp0 device file exists. If not, create it (as root):

cd /dev
/sbin/MAKEDEV lp0

You should already have the MAKEDEV package installed (if not, install it via yum).

[DBelton]

I had no problems using parallel port here on F16 with a HP Laserjet 4300 either.

[cmsps]

This is an obscure bug for at least one old printer! See: http://ask.fedoraproject.org/question/718

[HowardRoark]

Where can I find parport_pc ?

I'm running F17 and having a bear of a time trying to install a parallel port printer (HP Laserjet 4). (Huge boat anchor but an awesome printer.)

My PC, of course, has no parallel port, so I plugged in a PCI parallel port card, but doesn't seem to be recognized. lsmod shows that modules lp and parport are installed, but not parport_pc, which seems to be needed. Where does one find parport_pc??

Edit: OK, I found "parport_pc.ko" on my system ... some research indicates that this is a "kernel object". Can *this* file be loaded with insmod?

(Sorry for the basic questions. Been using Linux exclusively since about 2001 but have never touched the kernel before. Still learning!)

[george_toolan]

It's part of the kernel, so

modprobe parport_pc

should do the trick. The modules are usually located in a place like

/lib/modules/3.6.11-4.fc16.x86_64/kernel/drivers/parport/parport_pc.ko

Even if your new pc doesn't have no parallel port it might still have a connector where you could connect one.

Are you sure your pci card doesn't require any additional drivers?

You might have better luck with some usb to parallel adapter cable.

[HowardRoark]

Hey George, thanks for your reply! You are correct about the location of the modules ... got it working now. Here's a summary of my experience in the hope that it will benefit someone else:

After installing F17, I couldn't install my beloved, old HP4 parallel port printer with a usb-to-parallel-printer cable. Futzed around with it for a while but couldn't figure it out. (I'm thinking maybe the usb-to-parallel-printer cable failed? Used it before (under F12) with no problems.

So I plugged in a PCI-parallel port card ("SYBA, PCI-Express, 1 Port Parallel Card"). Figured it would "just work" like most of the other hardware devices that I've plugged into my Linux boxes over the years, and tried system-config-printer, but the printer was not detected. And no LPT showed up either.

So I decided to RTFM.

The manual for this parallel card included many different versions of the device. Apparently you need to look at the actual board to see which chip is on the board to find which set of instructions to follow. Mine had a "MosChip MCS9900" chip on board. 99% of those instructions were for a Serial card, but at the very end were the instructions for installing this parallel card:

Steps for setting parallel port :
---------------------------------
1. rmmod lp
2. rmmod parport_pc
3. insmod /usr/lib/modules/2.6.15/kernel/drivers/parport/parport_pc io=0xb000 irq=10.

Note: Here, the io and irq should be noted from lspci -v.

Step 1 was no problem.
Step 2 failed because apparently parport_pc was not already installed, which, in retrospect makes sense because the parallel card was not installed in the system when I installed F17. No problem.
Step 3 is where I got confused. Clearly that command wasn't going to work because it was written for some older version of Linux. I searched for "parport_pc" with no luck. But I did find "parport_pc.ko". Some research indicated that this was indeed a kernel module. Some things must have changed since all the other documentation that I had read. George's suggestion above indicated that I was in the right place.

So I did Step 3 with parport_pc.ko, and got no errors.

Tried system-config-printer again and voila! LPT1 showed up! Installed the printer and everything worked perfectly, except nothing would actually print.

Went back to Step 3 and noticed the cryptic note about how the io and irq should be noted from lspci -v. So I did that, and it showed

02:00.0 Parallel controller: NetMos Technology Device 9900 (prog-if 03 [IEEE1284])
Subsystem: Device a000:2000
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 255
I/O ports at 9c00 [size=8]
I/O ports at 9800 [size=8]
Memory at fdaff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Memory at fdafe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [78] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [80] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
Capabilities: [800] Advanced Error Reporting

So I repeated Step 2 and then re-did Step 3 with matching parameters like this:

insmod parport_pc.ko io=0x9c00,0x9800 irq=255

ran system-config-printer again and BIG JOY ... the actual MODEL NUMBER of my printer shows up. Completed the install process and everything works perfectly.

Moral of the story #1: RTFM
Moral of the story #2: Follow the actual instructions in TFM
Moral of the story #3: In the old days, the parallel port was at 0x0378 or something like that, and the IRQ was "7". So I expected to see those numbers somewhere in the instructions. Didn't. This was perplexing and slowed me down a bit. These days, PC hardware is completely different from what it used to be, so forget everything you remember from 30 or 20 or even 10 years ago.

[EDIT#1]
Oops, gotta make that persistent:
# cd /etc/sysconfig/modules/
# cp bluezwhatever.modules MyParallelPort.modules (copied an existing script to modify it.)
edited it to add the command to load the driver:
exec modprobe parport_pc.ko io=0x9c00,0x9800 irq=255
# cp the parport_pc.ko file into this directory so the script can find it when it runs. (not sure if this is necessary)
# chmod +x MyParallelPort.modules (make it executable)

Now I'll reboot and see if it sticks...[EDIT#2] Yes!