Problem with old(ish) devices on new(ish) distros

[menski]

I been playing around w. open source *nixes since the mid 90's and have been using Linux as the system running my home computer since 2000/2001. During all of that time I have used a trackball attached to my serial port and (for most of it) an HP Deskjet 540C attached to a parallel port. I think I can honestly say that, from the very beginning, neither of these devices has caused me an iota of trouble - until recently that is.

I have recently upgraded from SuSE 9.2 to 9.3 and from Mandrake 10.1 to 10.2. Under these systems the printer produces nothing but garbage. The only way I can currently print anything is by keeping a partition devoted to mdk 10.1, booting into it and printing from there.

The trackball started falling off some time ago: neither mdk nor SuSE would recognize it at install but, for a while, I could get round this in SuSE by re-writing the "input device" entry in XF86config. Now it simply doesn't want to know "protocol" "microsoft" and mdk has refused to have anything to do with it for months.

I suppose that the machine I'm running on is a bit long in the tooth as well: A self build with a 750Gb Athlon chip on an Abit KT7 board with 128Mb of SDRAM. But again, it's been perfectly solid for years.

I have done all the "obvious" things but I have to admit to being completely stuck. Any ideas (beyond "get new equipment") will be greatly welcome. Oddly enough, it's the trackball (which cost me about £50 in 1992) which I think I would like to see working most. I am currently running a PS2 mouse - but I don't like mice.

duncan_mk

 

[Trevoke]

I don't know what X server SUSE and Mandriva are running, though you make it sound like it's Xfree (but it ought to be X.org!).. xorgconfig or xfree86config will give you some input on *that* and maybe help you set up your trackball, as that's the configuration program. Maybe a "man xf86config" will give you what you need.

As far as the printer, that's just odd.
Got nothing for you on that one.. Check the packages you can install, see if you have old drivers or something.. ?
CUPS is usually good with older stuff.

-Haben sie fosforos?
-No tiengo caballero, but I have un briquet.

 

[menski]

Thanks for the help. I believe the distributions are currently running the XFree - everything seems to be marked XF - I'll soldier on with the other stuff

duncan_mk

 

[menski]

Sorted! The printer problem was in the BIOS.

I finally remembered that I had a copy of the Administration Guide for SuSE 8.1 and dug it out. This tells me that the IO address for the parallel port should be 378, the interrupt is irrelevant, mode should be Normal, SSP or Output-Only and that DMA should be disabled.

A quick scout round the Integrated Peripherals in CMOS showed me that the settings available were Normal, EPP, ECP & ECP/EPP: the default setting was ECP/EPP which turned on the -ECP mode use: DMA 3 and -Parallel port EPP type: EPP 1.9 options

Changing the setting to Normal solved the problem for both SuSE & Mandrake. What I can't quite understand is why the problem hasn't surfaced in previous distributions. BIOS settings are something I tend not to look at on even an annual basis and I have been using this machine for several (4 or 5) years?

I'm still stymied by the serial mouse!

duncan_mk