[PARPORT] Questions with ppdev

From: Michael Reinelt (reinelt@eunet.at)
Date: Thu Mar 15 2001 - 02:45:35 EST

  • Next message: Tim Waugh: "Re: [PARPORT] Questions with ppdev"

    Hi there,

    I'm writing a little tool 'lcd4linux' (http://lcd4linux.sourceforge.net)
    which allows to display data on liquid crystal displays connected to the
    parallel port.

    The whole bit-shifting is done in userspace with outb()'s, until I found
    the ppdev stuff. I implemented ppdev access into lcd4linux, and this
    works really great! Now I can even use my PCI parallel port card, which
    wasn't possible using outb's.

    But there are a few things I don't fully understand.... maybe someone
    here can give me some hints?

    First, I found that the ioctl(PPEXCL) didn't work. I discovered that the
    reason is lp.o, which seems to have the port open, too. It works if I
    load lp.o with the parameter 'parport=1,none'. If I don't have exclusive
    access to the port, can this lead to problems?

    Another thing I really don't understand is the autoloading of
    parport_pc.o. If I do a 'modprobe ppdev', it loads parport.o and
    ppdev.o, but not parport_pc.o (I'm using devfs, and I have an entry
    'alias /dev/parport* ppdev'). I should name parport_pc.o somewhere, but
    where and how? The strange thing here is, if I 'modprobe lp', it _does_
    autoload parport_pc.o, but I don't know why. I found no dependancy to
    parport_pc, neither at the vatrious modules.conf, nor in the
    modules.dep. How the hell does lp know to load parport_pc????

    Testing this stuff is really annoying because I cannt unload lp.o. Even
    if nobody uses a parallel port (lpd ist not running), I get the
    following usage:

    lsmod:
    lp 5456 1
    parport_pc 23072 1

    Somebody is using the lp module, but who? How can I find out? Because of
    the usage count not being zero, I cannot unload the modules (and try
    other parameters). Any hints?

    I'm running 2.4.2 on i386

    The last question is a bit different: I need small delays (about 40
    microseconds) while shifting the bits out. I suppose every userland
    application that prorams the parallel port with ppdev has this issue.
    How do I get such small delays in userland?

    I found several ways:

    a) busy waiting on a (calibrated) delay loop
    b) busy waiting on gettimeofday()
    c) busy waiting on rdtsc
    d) nanosleep() with SCHED_RR

    I don't like a) because of the needed calibration.
    I don't like b) because of the large number of system calls
    I don't like c) because it's non-portable and not available on older
    cpu's
    I don't like d) because of the danger running at SCHED_RR

    :-(

    Maybe ppdev should provide an interface to the kernel udelay() function?

    Thanks in advance,
                        Michael 

    -- 
netWorks       	                                  Vox: +43 316  692396
Michael Reinelt                                   Fax: +43 316  692343
Geisslergasse 4					  GSM: +43 676 3079941
A-8045 Graz, Austria			      e-mail: reinelt@eunet.at

    --  To unsubscribe, send mail to: linux-parport-request@torque.net --
--  with the single word "unsubscribe" in the body of the message. --

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 15 2001 - 02:51:14 EST