Installing second parallel port

Dear John,

My toys are in my pram, if they weren't I would have received another email from from The Mods.

Now we are not mind readers and can not know if you have read another topic and don't understand it unless you ask questions.

Some questions require only on line answers.

You need to be seen to be trying to help yourself, either by following advice given, following & reading links and if you do not understand asking a question or questions regarding the aforementioned.

Linux support will seem a bit terse at times, in saying that you will not be asked whether "you have installed the latest drivers & updates".

You will at times be asked to edit a config file, this is how Linux works, unlike windows, configuartion is 99.99% is by text files, without any fancy GUI. Please be sure to back before editing.

You will be required to now some basic concepts.
> is redirection, generally useful for writing the output of a command to a text file instead of the screen.
| is the pipe, it's purpose is to "pipe" the output of one command to another.
grep searches for a text pattern, the input you wish to search can either be a text file or the piped output of another command.
cat can be used to display (ie read) a text file to the screen screen without having to open an editor
Putting it all togetherFirst we use cat to read a text file,
The output of "cat mytextfile.txt" is "piped" through grep to look for "Hello"
The the output of "grep" is then redirected to a new file called result.txt.
sudo used before a command to get root privileges (equivalent to windows Administrator), Need to edit files in the /etc directory
lspci used to get info about installed hardware, when used as lspci -v the PCI ID will be displayed
For identifying hardware the PCI ID is very helpful, such as 8086:1234, even tho a piece of hardware comes from a different vendor if the PCI ID is the same it is in Linux's view the same piece of hardware.
So if you have your PCI ID using google with a term such as Linuxcnc PCI ID wxyz:1234 (obliviously using your actual PCI ID ) may throw up some results. This was the way I found links to a card similar to yours.

Some other things to get used to.
Learn to use a GUI test editor and a console text editor.
geany for GUI is a good choice, for Debian/Ubuntu based systems it can be installed bymidnight commander which is run in a terminal by mc is a good text based file manager with a very powerful text editor called mcedit which can be used by itself or by tapping on F4 on a file with the file manager. Saves having to go back to the GUI if you want to move/copy/edit/delete files when you are in a terminal. for Debian/Ubuntu based systems it can be installed by


Once again we are not mind readers. If you don't understand something in another thread please ask, we can't answer what YOU don't know, if YOU don't let us know that YOU don't know.
And as to why no one has not written up something, well it seems once someone has received help, they go away and only come back when they have another issue. Users like yourself, when you find a solution, would be thanked indeed if after finding a solution would do a write up. Don't use the excuse "I'm only a noob", well who better to write a howto for other noobs ? (I really hate that term)

Now one thing you must be aware of, quite a few of us started using Linux in the 90's when there were very few forums regarding general use, most of are info came from online HOWTOs or various personal web pages, there were few places apart for mailing lists were you could ask questions. So from our own experience we think that others would use the various search tools on the internet.

Thank you for coming Back BB.
I have a few comments based upon the above but rather than make a hurried response now, I will try to add a more considered explanation tomorrow. Please bear with me .

Pretty busy most of the day so may not get it done during your waking hours .

No probs matey

So Beaglebrain's toys are not actually back in the pram.
He has effectively killed the continuity of this thread by deleting his previous posts, and replacing with facile remarks.
I have no further wish to share a thread with someone who behaves n this way, so maybe better if we now kill this thread and start a new one .
Hopefully he will do as he promised and refrain from contributing there.

You appeared to be ignoring the posts, not asking any questions when you referred to a topic as "overly complicated" so what was the point.
There was good solid advice, posts from a user who has solved the problem. Yet rather than ask questions you did nothing.
So as you seemed to be ignoring them I didn't see the purpose of leaving them in.
If you had of asked question I would have been all ears.
If you aren't going to help yourself, by reading links and asking questions when you don't understand, you aren't worth my time.
As you were a new Linux user I did other advice on some commands you may be asked to run by other users to diagnose you problems. Things giving a quick explanation of pipes and redirection, which particular to linux\unix clones but MSDOS since the early days and as far as I know still a part of Windows.
In saying all that, if you have any questions regarding the links, which if you followed should be in your history, I will answer them to the best of my ability.

But if you really really have an issue, why not take it to the mods. Stand up to some "who behaves in this way". No one will be at a loss, neither the forum as a whole or myself. Life will go on.

As I said above , I followed links, two of which did not seem to lead to any resolution. One did but his solution did not seem to work for me.
You have now prevented me from re reading your contributions by deleting them in what appears to have been an immature tantrum.
Additionally you have ruined the continuity of the thread by your childish action.

I have used and forums for many years and found them invaluable .
(I even administer an engineers forum) Occasionally however we find a contributor who does so invariably late in the day after a couple of glasses of supermarket Merlot and who come over as incoherent , impatient and indeed bombastic . Pardon me if I have got the wrong impression here but this is how you have come over to me .
For this reason I would prefer if you do not respond further to this, or indeed to any further topics I may wish to raise.

Pardon you for insinuating I'm a cheap drunk that drinks alone at home, no. If you had the courage to actually call me that I might have of considered it.

Just the record as I feel I have the right of reply.
I haven't touched a drop of alcohol in over 5 years, purely by choice, and on the occasions I did drink, it was when out with friends at gigs. Never have been one to drink alone at home. So now that allegation has been dealt with.

I would like to know where I have been incoherent, but as you never mentioned this previously I would assume this is just a slur you have thought of on the go. (I wont say to cause offence as I don't choose to take offence.)

Why would you need to reread my posts, as they appeared not to be helpful in your situation.
I really cast doubt on your first sentence....you did previously state that they were overly complicated. So what was it you tried one and it did not work and never bothered to ask any questions......or was it overly complicated and you did not try. Up until now you never mentioned what had worked and what had not worked.
I take you worked out how to use sudo to copy files to directories that a normal user does not have write permissions. Of course that is only applicable if tried you loading parport_pc to force the registering of the add on card as viable parallel port. There by allowing hal_parport to get the information about the add on card from the call to the parallel port driver. This should have worked as the card in that thread matched the PCI ID of yours. If it didn't further investigation would be required, such as looking at dmesg after loading the driver, which can be done via a terminal.

Whether I respond or not to any threads is entirely my decision. You should be well aware of this, being an administrator yourself. So I guess your best course of action would be to ignore my posts.

Finally if you wish to throw insults my way, could you possibly try to be a bit more witty or at least creative. Or if that is not possible a more direct approach would be welcomed. One need not have to indulge in vulgarities to be direct, so if you thought that is what I meant that is not the case.

Just to round this off if possible ( I hate threads left unfinished).
I fitted a different parallel port and was equally unsuccessful in finding an address that worked for that .
I went back to see what Step config wizard turned up and did a copy of my old config but called up two parallel ports, under a new machine name then looked in the hal file to see what was in there .
loadrt hal_parport cfg="0 out 1 in" was what I found
Copied this into my previous configuration and it worked in there . Now have a working panel through second parallel port (parport 1)

Moral of the story seems to be try this first Just wish I had done so!

If you want to add your card to this thread, for the good of the Community, please leave a comment in this thread. Just read the first post and if you would be kind to leave the info as requested that would be a fantastic input.
forum.linuxcnc.org/18-computer/42826-par...d-info-thread#211982

We are trying to compile a list of cards known to work.
And instead of spending money on cheap wine, I always hated all wine, I'm obtaining a few random cards to add to the list with any workarounds required. PCI & PCIe cards are welcome. Info for on board cards aren't required as so far no issues have arisen, that is not to say they wont.

Just for bit of fun from a great Aussie Band of the late 70's and mid 80's.