Having some trouble here.

We are running RH9 on a Dell 1750 machine with an
SIIG PCI parallel port board stuck in there.

the lsmod shows

Module Size Used by Not tainted
soundcore 7044 0 (autoclean)
nfs 84600 2 (autoclean)
parport_pc 19204 1 (autoclean)
lp 9188 0 (autoclean)
parport 39072 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]


so it LOOKS like the parallel port is installed and running....
and it shows up in the hardware configuration.... and in dmesg...
it shows:



PCI parallel port detected: 131f:2020, I/O at 0xccf8(0xccf0)
parport0: PC-style at 0xccf8 (0xccf0) [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
lp0: console ready


But the device SITTING on that parallel port, is not responding.
It's a thermal sensor dealie. When we put this card/device on
another box, it runs immediately fine...but on this Dell unit, it does not.

Since the reply to the executable is simply the highest measurement
available (like 64665 or something), apparently we are not happily
talking to the unit, but of course, I have no idea.

MY question to anyone...is how would I be able to find out if there
is something on a parallel port, if it is not a printer? Since this is kinda
homebrew devices and software, they are (let's put this diplomatically)
not being helpful....probably rightly so, since its not their job to help
ME learn how to run Linux.

So let's proceed that they are not available for help.

If there is a device, hanging out on a parallel port that is apparently being
seen by the system....

how in the world can I verify that it exists?

Is there something analogous to a ping.... or any handshaking or
interrogation that I can do?

Since I got the old other machine to work with this card/device combo,
I was able to sell the boss on the fact that we could utilize a newer
server to serve this function as well. Now THIS boondoggle. ugh.

If you would be kind enough to keep it in "Linux for dumbasses" terms,
it would be best, but if you need to simply hammer it into my head, I
will sort it out too, bottom line...any help would be reallly really appreciated.



many tanks.

Parallel port I/O address are usually 0x378 and 0x3f8. Your card appears to be at 0xccf8. Can you manually set the I/O address of the PCI card? Can you manually configure the software to look at different I/O address? Is this a Plug and Pray type card? If so it might be sharing an IRQ or have an IRQ>15.

I've seen several references that seem to repeat the mantra
that one should turn off Plug and Play. True?


The vendor had mentioned at first that this device had no way to
configure it on the board, but had to be done under Linux itself.

Not precisely sure how to do that.
Any idears?


However, I have not yet turned off the plug and play but would
sure do so if there is any reason that it should have any effect on
the scenario.

Buffaloed, personally.

It couldn't hurt by turning off Plug and Pray. Without knowing more info on the board I don't have any more ideas.