Parallel Port issue!

Before anyone picks me up on this I have read Arceye's stuff but it is a bit beyond my computing capabilities at this time. in my hobby workshop I run a lathe, Foamcutter and indexer on Ubuntu EMC2 Vsn 8.04. However coming back to it after about three years of illness I found the early desktop PC had died. I then tried to set up a replacement and found the Parallel port didn't work. Although it would work on XP running Foamworks. Installation of EMC2 seemed to disable it. In the ensuing panic I have collected a n ACER tower and a couple of Shuttles which also fail to talk to their Paralle ports when EMC2 is installed. although I do have an old tower as a single shot spare. I conclude that these PC.s have some hardware or bios configuration which causes a sound Parallel port to go dumb. I believe this is a case of operator error and that I need to delve into the dark place where the parport driver lives. I understand that I can access the HAL files etc via the "TERMINAL" and have found this but without explicit step by step instructions it is all gobbledygook to me. I did build an LED parallel port monitor so I can set up and test without the kit connected and this just confirms what happens when I connect to the lathe etc.
Can anyone point me in the right direction
PS I have tried a PCI PP card with no improvement.

Hi

As a starter, when the computer is running, open a terminal and run dmesg | grep parport > output.txt and post the resulting output.txt.

If you see these posts
www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/forum...h-paraler-port#35881

www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/forum...port-parportpc#35703

The most common problem is the port being claimed by the standard linux drivers before linuxcnc can address it.
That would fit with the port working to print under windoze but not found by linuxcnc

regards

OK gona give that a go and get back to you
Cheers
Ken

Hello again
Don't seem to get any response from terminal (assuming I did it right) but "dmesg" did produce pages of stuff of which I have posted the first few lines.
ken@ken-shuttle:~$ dmesg|grep parport>output.txt
ken@ken-shuttle:~$ dmesg|grep parport > output.txt
ken@ken-shuttle:~$ dmesg | grep parport > output.txt
ken@ken-shuttle:~$ dmesg
[4294667.296000] Linux version 2.6.15-magma (root@ubuntu) (gcc version 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu5)) #1 Fri Jun 9 20:51:19 EEST 2006
[4294667.296000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[4294667.296000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f800 (usable)
[4294667.296000] BIOS-e820: 000000000009f800 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
[4294667.296000] BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
[4294667.296000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000001bff0000 (usable)
[4294667.296000] BIOS-e820: 000000001bff0000 - 000000001bff3000 (ACPI NVS)
[4294667.296000] BIOS-e820: 000000001bff3000 - 000000001c000000 (ACPI data)
[4294667.296000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
[4294667.296000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
[4294667.296000] BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
Incidentally when I tried to load a PCI card for windose,Linux & Mac the Linux installer didn't autorun but reeled off loads of instruction which I couldn't follow. I think I am well out of my depth here and need to learn about the very basics like use of Terminal etc. I will understand if you need to give up on me.
Cheers
Ken

Hi

dmesg | grep parport > output.txt with the spaces exactly as shown, runs dmesg, which displays the kernel messages for the last boot

It is then piped ( | ) to grep which is a search engine, with instruction to output any lines containing parport.

The > redirects the output to a file called output.txt

You should find that file in the current directory (the one you ran the command in the terminal from, probably your home directory)

So either run dmesg | grep port > output.txt ( cast a bit wider to just port to pick up all ports ) and look for output.txt and post it

or

dmesg > dmesg.txt and attach dmesg.txt to a post and we can pick through it ourselves

regards

Found that text file just where you described and if all goes well you should find it attached:
Regards
Ken

Hi

The file is the dmesg print and contains one oblique reference to the parallel port - that none were found
33.652148] lp: driver loaded but no devices found

Not sure if ppdev being loaded means it was found after that, or it is just a dependency load from lp
53.211854] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver

in my hobby workshop I run a lathe, Foamcutter and indexer on Ubuntu EMC2 Vsn 8.04.

The big thing, which I did not notice from your first few lines you posted a while back, is that you are not running 8.04, you are running 6.06
on an AMD Sempron processor

[4294667.296000] Linux version 2.6.15-magma (root@ubuntu) (gcc version 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu5)) #1 Fri Jun 9 20:51:19 EEST 2006

So now run these commands from the terminal and post the output

lsmod | grep lp
lsmod | grep ppdev
lsmod | grep parport_pc

ls -l /dev/lp* /dev/parport*


The first 3 are seeing if the 3 parallel port drivers have been loaded and the 4th is seeing if a device /dev/parport* has been created

If the device exists, the linux drivers can be removed and Linuxcnc should work.

regards

Sorry 8.04 on pc indoors where I model and create the G codes (in the warm) and Dapper Drake which I use in the workshop. both versions suffer the same affliction depending upon which computer is used. I have a feeling that older PC's are more likely to work for reasons I have seen muted.

As far as the Terminal results go mixed success. See attached.
Best regards
Ken

Hi

1/ ken@ken-shuttle:~$ lsmod | grep lp
lp 9028 0
parport 29640 2 ppdev,lp

2/ ken@ken-shuttle:~$ lsmod | grep ppdev
ppdev 6916 0
parport 29640 2 ppdev,lp

OK, perhaps parport_pc used to be called just parport, but basically you have all 3 standard linux printer drivers loaded, which will block Linuxcnc getting access to the parallel port

From a terminal run
sudo rmmod parport
sudo rmmod ppdev
sudo rmmod lp

This should remove those drivers

Check by running ps -A | more and check they do not appear in the list (you use spacebar to move down a page)

If they do appear reverse the order of the first 2 rmmod commands and run again, they have to be removed in the order they were loaded in the dependency chain.

Once done start Linuxcnc and hopefully it will find the parallel port

regards

I have attached the results which as far as I could see complied to your "order of installation" statement and it seemed to do removal. However no activity on the port. I will run through the same process on a tower PC which is similarly afflicted as I had previously thought that it was only Shuttle PC's which suffered this ailment. I will tied up for a few days but will get back to it and report my progress terminal results.
asap. I have attached a file containing the results.

Regards
Ken