VMware "/dev/parport0" is used by other program

alexaltair · 08-04-2003, 03:17 PM

I did install Windows 2000 as guest OS in VMware under Linux.

Now, when I add "/dev/parport0" to have an access to LPT, I always get the same error message: "/dev/parport0" is used by other program

How can I 'free' /dev/parport0 for VMware?
Please help.

mindnumbed · 08-04-2003, 04:34 PM

well, first of all, find out what other program is using it (as root):
# fuser /dev/parport0
this will return a PID (or a list of PIDs). You can then do
$ ps 1234
(where 1234 is the PID or list of PIDs seperated by spaces)
this will find out what program is using the device. you can then close it down to free it. If that doesn't work you can manually kill the processes:
WARNING if you kill important system processes you could crash your computer. however you won't permanently kill it.
$ kill 1234

MN

alexaltair · 08-04-2003, 05:19 PM

# fuser /dev/parport0 - returns nothing at all.
However, I discovered that CUPS is running... So, I turned it off and VMware works now. But, when CUPS is off I can't print from Linux. That's sucks.

Is that possible to run both CUPS and VMware?...

Quote:

Originally posted by mindnumbed
well, first of all, find out what other program is using it (as root):
# fuser /dev/parport0
this will return a PID (or a list of PIDs). You can then do
$ ps 1234
(where 1234 is the PID or list of PIDs seperated by spaces)
this will find out what program is using the device. you can then close it down to free it. If that doesn't work you can manually kill the processes:
WARNING if you kill important system processes you could crash your computer. however you won't permanently kill it.
$ kill 1234

MN

mindnumbed · 08-04-2003, 05:27 PM

I don't think you can have them both simultaneously: use
# service cups stop
#service cups start
to turn CUPS on/off.

the ideal solution would be to pipe windoze printing output via CUPS. however, it would be ugly:

windoze-->loopback interface-->samba server on loopback interface-->CUPS

samba can be automatically set up to print from 'doze, however this would really be more trouble than it's worth.

Electro · 08-04-2003, 06:30 PM

Just do rmmod lp. After you power off your virtual machine, type insmod lp to activate your parallel port for CUPS. No need to power down CUPs. Any printing will be kept in queue until the printer port or printer is activated.

OR

Setup a postscrpt printer in Windows that makes a postscript file and let CUPS print the postscript file. Great setup for inkjet printers if you don't want the other computers messing up your printer alignment.

OR

Write a multi-connection parallel port module/service.