[ltp] parport problems on 600E

[unlisted]

first off, ignore everything i say below and if you haven't solved your
problem yet go straight to linuxprinting.org's forums (forum for each
printer manufacturer plus some various forums) and ask for help there.

still here?  okay.  if you are still reading then you must be willing to
settle for possibly very erroneous information and off-base suggestions.
;-)

On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 10:44, G Brigley wrote:
> insmod parport 
> insmod parport_pc irq=7 io=0x378
> insmod lp

what kernel are you running?  2.2 or 2.4 series?

if you are running 2.2, then what gets logged to /var/log/messages when
you "modprobe parport_probe"?

if you are running 2.4, then what gets logged to /var/log/messages when
you "modprobe parport_pc"?

see if anything insightful is logged.

on my debian 2.4.19 thinkpad 770x, i get:

Oct 30 00:08:12 leviticus kernel: parport0: PC-style at 0x3bc (0x7bc)
[PCSPP,TRISTATE]
Oct 30 00:08:12 leviticus kernel: parport0: Printer, Lexmark
International Lexmark OptraColor 40

i use to specify "options parport_pc io=0x3bc irq=7" in modules.conf,
but then i tried to see if linux could autodetect the port and irq, so i
commented the options line out of modules.conf and linux did fine
autodetect the port settings (and even printer) then and ever since.  i
believe the printer id is provided by the printer itself, and not all
printers support such.  (every printer in linuxprinting.org's printer
database has a field for "autodetection methods" and some are listed as
"none", and i think the printer id is considered "autodetection".)

the results should be the same for a 2.2 kernel, as i just recently
upgraded to 2.4 and i don't remember having to futz with my modules.conf
entry after the switch to get the parallel port working.

so, see if linux can autodetect your parallel port settings (ie don't
specify them as arguments when loading the module), and also see if your
printer returns an identification string.

> Also, when I try to print using lpr, the document gets queued and then
> disappears as though it had printed, but nothing happens on the printer
> (an HP deskjet).

you might want to bypass any spooling mechanism and print directly to
the printer.  many of the printers (that i have seen) listed in the
linuxprinting.org database are listed as directly accepting us-ascii
text.  see if you printer is one of those, and if so, try cat-ing a text
file directly to /dev/lp0 (or /dev/printers/0 under devfs).  this will
remove the spool from the equation.

> What am I missing here?  I don't really know what else to do in terms of
> troubleshooting.

try the above and see if this gives you anymore insight into the
problem.  but if you still need/want help definitely try the
linuxprinting.org forums.

anyways...
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