Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 00:43:08 -0800 From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@monkeys.com> To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Parallel port problems... solved! (maybe) Message-ID: <4061.948703388@monkeys.com>
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A few weeks ago, I showed up here and was bitching about not being able to send stuff out to my parallel printer. I got a bit of heat for saying that I _could_ send data to the printer from my other system (running Linux). Well, I just wanted to say that all indications now are that the FreeBSD kernel and the FreeBSD parallel port driver have been vindicated. I recently loaded up FreeBSD on that other system and guess what? I can print just fine from that now. Conclusion: It ain't the software. As far as I can tell now, the real problem is/was due to something... I'm not sure exactly what... which is rather non-normal about the on-motherboard parallel port hardware on _this_ specific motherboard, namely, a Tekram model P5V30-B4. But over on my other system that has an ASUS P5A, I got no problems at all printing under either Linux or FreeBSD. I tried to track down the problem with the parallel port hardware on this Tekram P5V30-B4 by throwing a few printfs into the FreeBSD parallel port driver but I didn't get very far... just far enough to see that the parallel port hardware on this (Tekram) board seems to be *really* either broken or else substantially different from what the parallel port driver is expecting. Almost anything the driver did to the on-board parallel port caused that port to come back with the nACK bit set in its status register, and apparently, the driver didn't like that much. :-) I just wanted to set the record straight on this. It was definitely not FreeBSD's fault, as far as I can see now. Has anyone ever used FreeBSD to drive a parallel port on a Tekram p5V30-B4? P.S. Actually, that other (ASUS P5A) system inherited a disk drive that had FreeBSD 3.1 loaded up on it, and that appears to be using the `nlpt' driver, rather than the `lpt' driver that is being used on this (3.3) system on the Tekram. But I don't believe that is relevant. The errors I was seeing seemed to be happening at a lower (ppbus) level. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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