[hpoj-devel] Re: FW: HP OJ R80xi problems continued ...

[<pa...@rc...>]

Hi, Al.  It turns out that I was missing some information, which was kindly
provided by Alexander.  Please try out the new instructions, which I also
posted to http://hpoj.sourceforge.net/todo.shtml.  If you still have
difficulties then please write back to hpoj-devel, because you're not the
only one having trouble with this.

I'm not familiar with "checkpc".  It must be new with 7.0, but I'll
investigate it further.  It seems to me that it shouldn't be necessary for
the hpoj print path to be fully functional before starting lpd, as long as
it doesn't try to start printing immediately.

The kernel-mode drivers are being replaced by a user-mode daemon (called
"ptal-mlcd") which handles the low-level I/O over both parallel and USB.
The code is checked into CVS, and it will go into the next official version
(0.8) eventually.

Thanks for your patience in this matter.  :-)  I apologize for the
inconvenience.

David

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Al Schmidt [mailto:a_g...@ho...] 
> Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 8:18 PM
> To: dav...@hp...
> Subject: HP OJ R80xi problems continued ...
> 
> 
> Hello David:
>  
> I continue to have problems with the R80 driver installation (but I've
> learned even more now!)
>  
> I'm glad that this has forced me to look more deeply into Linux startup
> sequences, but I'm very frustrated that despite hour after hour of effort,
> I'm still stuck (and now I have no further ideas - and I've wasted two full
> days getting nowhere - other than knowing more about init, modules, and
> configuration files)
>  
> I tried your suggestion to add the two aliases to my /etc/modules.conf file.
> That didn't work. However, here's what I have learned:
>  
> 1) The original problem I had was that Linux would no longer boot - it was
> hanging at the startup of lpd. I found that what was hanging the startup
> sequence was something in /etc/rc.d/init.d/lpd - a utility called checkpc
> which is to check the printcap file before starting up lpd. I first thought
> that this was due to the device /dev/ptal-printd/mlc_pp0 not existing when
> checkpc ran, but that wasn't the case. Nonetheless, I just disabled checkpc
> from running, and I can boot normally (no longer need to boot in single user
> mode)
>  
> 2) I want to be clear about this - all along, if I followed the instructions
> that came with the download of the drivers from the soundforge site
> (interactive installation), I found that the instructions are correct and
> the drivers work well. The problem is in automating the installation of the
> print drivers/daemons.
>  
> 3) Even with the checkpc utility disabled, I must still manually go through
> the installation steps to get printing to work. The ptal-printd doesn't want
> to start (invoked from the /etc/rc.d/init.d/lpd script, or from
> /etc/rc.d/rc.local script). I have the iee12844[pp].o modules in a "custom"
> directory (so as not to get confused with the generic "out-of-the-box" Linux
> modules in /lib/modules/2.2.16-22/* directories). I've added the path to
> that "custom" directory to the /etc/modules.conf file, along with the
> additional two alias statements that you suggested. I've run depmod and see
> that the ieee12844[pp].o modules are listed in
> /lib/modules/2.2.16-22/modules.dep file (along with all the others).
>  
> So, if I start Linux (plain RedHat Linux 7 distribution from CD) and *then*
> follow the installation instructions (insmod for parport, parport_pc,
> parport_probe, ieee12844, ieee12844pp, then start ptal-printd mlc:mlcpp0
> -like /dev/lp0 &), all works fine. Printing is automatic, the ghostscript
> filter is used, etc.
>  
> But I cannot get the system to startup and know how/when to load the modules
> mentioned above. I cannot seem to get ptal-printd to run. I cannot get
> checkpc to run without hanging.
>  
> This perhaps seems insiginificant. I mean, I *can* print, after all. But
> given that this is the current RedHat Linux version, I imagine that others
> will have the expectation, as I do, that this system can be implemented such
> that it is reasonably straighforward to install and have automatically
> started upon boot. RedHat's Linux is one of the most popular, after all.
>  
> In your reply, you indicated that the kernel drivers will no longer be
> needed. I didn't understand what you meant by that.
>  
> If this is all really just Linux knowledge, I apologize in advance for
> taking your time with this. Still, I have to wonder if I can't do this
> installation (I've been a user, but not sysadmin/kernel hacker, for over 15
> years now) by following the instructions, how many others won't be able to
> as well (for an automatic start-up of the print system). I'll be glad to
> share more information about this if there are more details that you'd like
> clarified. I hope that you'll consider looking further into understanding
> what is going on here.
>  
> Regards,
>  
> Al Schmidt
> Pinnacle Advanced Technologies, Inc.