I am trying to understand the issues related to making more
general use of ieee1284 parallel port device ID information. Most
recent parallel port printers export information about the make, model
and feature set in this way, and I am wondering if this is also true
for most non-printer parallel port devices (parallel port CD-ROM's,
cameras, etc.). If so, I am wondering if it would be useful to have
some kind of /sbin/hotplug support for this, since I understand there
is supposed to be a way that these devices can signal that something
has changed (hopefully this includes things like that they have been
plugged in). That way, if you plugged in a zip disk, the module could
be automatically loaded and other actions could also be taken, even
things like mounting it if there is media present.
Currently, the standard USB parallel port driver supports
an ioctl for extracting this information, and there is a user level
utility from Michael Fulbright at Red Hat that works with the standard
parallel ports by manipulating IO ports directly (!), and I am
aware of the sysctl interface, which returns ID information that
it got at initialization time but does not redo the query.
I guess what I would ideally like is to have the
parallel port driver call /sbin/hotplug with DEVICE=/dev/parallel/0
if new ieee1284 information is available, and then have
hotplug or a program that it calls query the parallel port either
through the existing mechanisms or, ideally, a uniform
ioctl for downloading the ID information, and then have it
modprobe the appropriate module based on that information.
Such a mechanism could simply system administration
significantly for users who are not themselves parport experts.
Any comments on this idea would be appreciated. If it
seems feasible, I will probably take a whack at implementing
it.
Adam J. Richter __ ______________ 4880 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 104
adam@yggdrasil.com \ / San Jose, California 95129-1034
+1 408 261-6630 | g g d r a s i l United States of America
fax +1 408 261-6631 "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."
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