Printer and Sound difficulties
 

Hi,

I have just installed Redhat 9, with the Gnome GUI. Everything seems to be fine apart from two major issues.

1. When trying to configure the printer, it (Linux) does not appear to be able to find the parallel port. I tried typing in the /dev/lp0 in the custom box, but no good.

How does a complete and utter newbie novice get the parallel port to work. My printer (Epson Stylus color 400) appears in the list of printers supported, it is just not being detected.

2. The sound card detection does not detect my sound chips. This may be because I do not have a separate sound card, but sound built into the motherboard, I don't know.

My sound system on this PC is Yamaha OPL3-SAx (originally running under win 95)

How (in idiot level steps) can I configure my sound to work?

I have tried looking at other posts relating to the printer issues especially, but they get too technical too fast. I wouldn't have the first clue even on how to modify conf files etc. So I need help in patient baby steps please.

Best news of all.... my modem works fine! I had tried Phatlinux in the past but came to a dead halt with the modem and gave up trying. RH 9 found it and used it first time.

Thanks in advance.

Mark L.

have a look here for your printing problem.

http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_pr...ylus_Color_400

about the sound, look into alsa at

http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc...module=opl3sa2

hope that helps.
good luck.

Hi,

Thanks for the links.

Mark L.

Printer Sorted out
 

In case anyone else reads this thread,

I found the printer problem was due to my BIOS settings.

I changed my "Plug and Play OS" setting to "NO"

and my parallel port setting from "Auto" to "EPP"

saved the changes and rebooted. I was then able to configure my printer straight away. It still works fine in Windows 98SE too.

Not having much luck with the sound so far though. Still trying to get that sorted out.


Mark L.

@marklory


I am definately interested in how you did the following:



"I changed my "Plug and Play OS" setting to "NO"

and my parallel port setting from "Auto" to "EPP" "


I would appreciate specific details...I was somewhat aware of the issue, but I cannot how to specifically change these settings in RedHat 9


Help would be GREATLY appreciated!


Rukhin

The short answer to your sound problem: spend the money and get a sound card that IS supported under Linux and Red Hat. Make sure you turn off the sound chips on the mother board via CMOS. Sound cards are cheap these days. Otherwise you are asking for eternal headaches.

Hi Rukhin,

Those changes I made were in the actual BIOS not in Redhat.

I have an Intel motherboard, so the following may not be the same for getting into all BIOS's

Also, an important point to bear in mind...... if you are not careful, any changes you make could make a bit of a mess. It is possible to "Exit without saving changes" if you are not sure.

On the first screen I see when booting up the computer, it does a quick memory check then for a few seconds it says at the bottom of the screen

"Press F2 to enter setup"

After I hit F2 it changes to

"Entering Setup"

Then the BIOS setup screen opens.

Once in, it is just a case of scrolling around to find the settings you want to change. There is usually help on the screen telling you which keys do what, so you can change settings.

As I said before, the ones I changed were

"Plug and Play OS?" (I set it to "No")

and

"Parallel port" (I changed it from "Auto" to "EPP" and my BIOS then automatically filled in the other details relating to that mode)

Then I hit the required key to "Save Changes and Exit"

It askes me if I'm sure, then when I hit "yes" the setup closes and the computer reboots. I let mine boot to Windows 98 first, just to make sure the printer still worked ok. Windows went through the "detecting new hardware" procedure and picked up the printer port. The printer works fine in Windows.

Then I rebooted into Redhat and ran the Printer configuration from the Gnome Desktop. It showed the printer port, and let me go through the rest of the procedure.

Hope that helps.

Mark L.

...like a charm!
 

@marklory

Thank you for your detailed explanation! Everything is now in order!

Rukhin