Sammy Redshaw wrote:
> For those of you linuxers with zip drive if you are running linux
> mandrake or red hat and only have one parallel port to share your zip
> drive and printer with use this quick hack to run both devices on the
> same port
Hi, Sammy. Thanks for providing this tip. Are you plugging the printer into
the pass-through port on the Zip drive or plugging one device into your PC at
a time? I have often heard that one could have problems when connecting a
printer to a switchbox, Zip drive, or other pass-through device, particularly
when using advanced protocols such as ECP, because the signals or timing might
not always get passed through correctly, confusing the PC and/or the printer.
Perhaps newer Zip drives are better about this. If it works for you, then
all the more power to you, but if you ever have problems, then it would be a
good idea to try it with the printer connected directly to the PC in case
that was what was causing the problem.
> goto /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit and write the following lines in
> after it loads the sound modules or it won't work
>
> #load parallel port
> /sbin/modprobe parport
> /sbin/modprobe parport_pc
> /sbin/modprobe parport_probe
>
> #load zip drive
> /sbin/modprobe imm (this for zip250 use the one applicable to zip 100)
>
> #load printer
> insmod /usr/local/bin/ieee12844.o
> insmod /usr/local/bin/ieee12844pp.o
I would also be concerned about having two drivers loaded at the same time
that try to use the parallel port, particularly if you're scanning an image
and saving it to your Zip drive. But again, if this works for you, then
great.
Another thing to note here is that if you're loading parport_probe and
ieee12844pp.o at boot time, then you need to make sure your printer is
connected and powered on at boot time, or you will have to unload and
reload these drivers later so they will properly detect the printer.
David
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