From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Mar 29 22:09:12 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id WAA19467 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Sun, 29 Mar 1998 22:09:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA19462 for ; Sun, 29 Mar 1998 22:09:05 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA29837; Mon, 30 Mar 1998 15:38:45 +0930 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) id PAA27410; Mon, 30 Mar 1998 15:38:45 +0930 (CST) (envelope-from grog) Message-ID: <19980330153844.22515@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 15:38:44 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Andrew MacIntyre Cc: John Utz , questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: why is ghostscript so slow now? did i miss a setting? References: <19980329163759.20841@freebie.lemis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.89i In-Reply-To: ; from Andrew MacIntyre on Mon, Mar 30, 1998 at 06:30:48AM +1000 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 30 March 1998 at 6:30:48 +1000, Andrew MacIntyre wrote: > On Sun, 29 Mar 1998, Greg Lehey wrote: > >>> and it takes an hour to print. lpd sends the head across once every 8 >>> minutes or so on a single pass. this is pretty time consuming. >>> >>> this hardware setup has run with gs for a couple years now, this is sort >>> of surprising. >> >> That's a good piece of information. I suspect you might be running >> into problems with interrupts. If the line printer driver doesn't get >> any interrupts, it transfers about one character per second. That >> sounds like what's happening to you. >> >> Before you go chasing the wrong problem, try this: >> >> # lptcontrol -p >> >> If you're not using /dev/lpt0, use the -u option to describe which >> unit *number* (1 or 2) you are using. See the man page for further >> details. >> >> This will turn the printer port on in polled mode. The result should >> be much faster if the interrupts are the problem. > > I installed Debian 1.3.1 (mu choice of Linux dists when I'm not allowed to > use FreeBSD) on a system at work recently and noticed that the default > lpt0 configuration was polled. Previous installs with much older kernels > had given interrupt driven lpt?s. > > Just makes me wonder whether the incidence of funny parallel port IRQ > handling (port assignments with lpt? in DOS land have always been odd) is > on the increase, possibly in conjunction with a move to PnP IRQ assignment > by motherboard manufacturers (I've heard rumblings about this with serial > ports). In fact, FreeBSD has had polled lpt drivers for a long time. When I first moved to FreeBSD (from BSD/OS, about 3 years ago), I found that I had to run my printer in polled mode, though it worked fine in interrupt mode (the only possibility) under BSD/OS. I haven't got rid of the impression that this was a kludge rather than a hardware problem, but it's been a long while since I've seen a necessity for it. Greg To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message