Looking for someone to troubleshoot realtime in discord

I created and ran my CNC machine for a few years and now decided to switch to linuxCNC which also required a new breakout board (PBX-RF) and that new breakout board requires a DB-25 connection. I bought a pci card (PCI I/O Parallel Port DB25 25Pin IEEE 1284 Printer Card Controller Adapter) wired up my CNC machine, triple checked my work, and made a computer exclusively for linuxCNC on 2.7.14 wheezy. I fired everything up it, heard the motors kick in as expected, and went through the stepconf as carefully as I could. I couldn't get a motor to spin on the test. I've read through a ridiculous amount similar problems, and tried all sorts of things. My only guess right now is that my pci card doesn't have a driver, but I can't even be sure on that. The parport in stepconf doesn't give it an address automatically, but it looks like it's available with the lspci -v looks like it is showing the card, I think. The pci card might not even be the problem.

If someone can have a call or video call over discord that would be super helpful. I don't enjoy the format of help where I have to keep trying random suggestions from anyone that types something into the forum. It's time consuming, and sometimes it hurts more than it helps.

I'm new to linux and linuxCNC, but I'm not a complete idiot. My diploma is for CAD/CAM Engineering Technology, and it involved a lot more than just CAD and CAM.

Thank you

"sudo lspci -v | grep par" asks for a password, I enter the password and then nothing happens.
I did try "cat /proc/ioports | grep par" and it says "0378-037a : parport0". 0378 is a common and ideal base address if I understand correctly, right?

I appreciate and value open source software, and I don't expect a customer service line, so I'll take what I can get. I just think that some problems are better solved with quick and focused communication, especially if everyone can see what they're talking about. That's why I asked. If that idea makes you tense, don't worry about it. I have no idea what I would pay for that help, but I think a good payment to the community would be to formally write out the problem and solution afterwards so that it's not drowned in 20 pages on a thread. These one-off problems can get overwhelming to read through on forums.
I'm not angry, I'm just explaining myself.

Your picture is really funny by the way. Thanks for your help so far

I really don't think your approach is doing you a favor, but we are helpful people so I hazard a "random" suggestion anyway.
Since you don't like to waste your time, why not invest in something that we actually know it works?

Like this:
store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=produc...=83_85&product_id=58

Well that's what you can do. Once you find your solution, do a write up.
You could also try "Par" vs "par" as the argument to grep or you could use the -i switch for grep with "par". It's not that "nothing happens" it's that grep hasn't found the string you told it to search for.

Historically 0x378 is the address of the parallel port. Ideal, hmm, I don't think there is an "ideal" base address. The address is the address.

Surely if you have the ability to get a diploma you have the ability to read through "20 pages", find a solution if there is one there and do a short concise write up. If you can't put the time in nor have the time maybe it would be better to pursue another activity that takes up less of your precious time.

Like I said the empty lscpi result is because grep is case sensitive, the -i switch causes grep to search for string disregarding case.

so either run
sudo lspci -v | grep -i par
or
sudo lspci -v | grep Par

Thank you,
The motherboard does indeed have a 26 pin header in a rectangular pattern, with the 26th pin missing, and the writing beside says jprnt1, which I assumed and confirmed is meant for a printer cable. That idea makes a lot of sense to me. I'll have to use some jumper wires to match the db25 cable soon to test it.

thanks for that last message BeagleBrainz,
the print out was:
04:01.0 parallel controller: Device 1c00:2170 (rev 0f) (prog-if 01 [BiDir])

UntitledDocument wrote:

Thank you,
The motherboard does indeed have a 26 pin header in a rectangular pattern, with the 26th pin missing, and the writing beside says jprnt1, which I assumed and confirmed is meant for a printer cable. That idea makes a lot of sense to me. I'll have to use some jumper wires to match the db25 cable soon to test it.

How about one of these
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LPT1-Parallel-Port-Pr...a:g:4KcAAOSwPzZfFa6T

You might have to get a gender changer for the DB25

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-pcs-25-Pin-Male-to-...4ca3b77b5d583e3103ef