[comp.os.coherent] Installing a printer.

quairoli@cs.widener.edu (Patrick Quairoli) (05/17/91)

	has anyone had any problems installing a dot matrix printer with
coherent.  i can't seem to cat file >lpt1  or lpr file
the system keeps giving me an error such as 'can not open device' , 
or 'permission denied'.  any ideas will be appriecated.

please send e-mail only

-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
patrick j. quairoli		| "Different eyes see different things;
widener!quairoli 		|  Differnet hearts beat on different strings."
quairoli@cs.widener.edu		|	-Rush PW 'Different Strings'

it23026@coral.micro.umn.edu (Pitt) (05/17/91)

quairoli@cs.widener.edu (Patrick Quairoli) writes:


>	has anyone had any problems installing a dot matrix printer with
>coherent.  i can't seem to cat file >lpt1  or lpr file
>the system keeps giving me an error such as 'can not open device' , 
>or 'permission denied'.  any ideas will be appriecated.

I do face the problem before, try to set the printer port to another number, it doesn't sound make sence but it works for me, under DOS my printer is LPT:1 but in coherent, my printer port is LPT:2. Don't ask me why, ask the people who wrote coherent.

/cheer. Pitt

winans@sirius.mcs.anl.gov (John Winans) (05/17/91)

In article <NYR+0-P@cs.widener.edu> quairoli@cs.widener.edu (Patrick Quairoli) writes:
>
>	has anyone had any problems installing a dot matrix printer with
>coherent.  i can't seem to cat file >lpt1  or lpr file
>the system keeps giving me an error such as 'can not open device' , 
>or 'permission denied'.  any ideas will be appriecated.

Well, when you first install the coherent stuff, you are asked about your 
printer configuration & a link is made from /dev/lp to the correct /dev
device node for lpt1 (and lpt2 etc...)  You probably didn't install a printer
or installed it differently than the way you have things wired now.

look at the device numbers of the /dev files that represent the physical printer
ports, not the ones that are there for nice name access.  Somewhere in the 
manual I remember there being a break down on what all the minor device numbers
are used for.  All you gotta do is find the one for the port you want & use that
one (ore relink /dev/lp to use that one.)  I have not messed with it much lately
but I would think that the printer with minor device 0 would correspond to lpt1
and minor device 1 = lpt2 and so on.


By the way, you can't expect "cat file > lpt1" to actually send a file to your
printer unless your current working directory is /dev and lpt1 is a device node
representing your printer.  I assume what you ment to do is 
"cat file > /dev/lpt1".

The cannot open device message means that there is a device deriver node present
but the device driver is not installed or perhaps the printer is 'off line' and
therefore the file cannot be opened.  Try the other /dev/lp device nodes.

The permission denied message is probably due to you trying to redirect your
output into a file (aka device node) that does not exist & therfore UNIX is 
trying to create a new regular file to put the redirected stdout data into. 
And the file you are redirecting into happens to be in a directory that your
current UID can not create files in.
                   -OR-
You are redirecting your stdout into a file (or device node) that does not
have write persissions allowed for your current UID.

--
! John Winans                     Advanced Computing Research Facility  !
! winans@mcs.anl.gov              Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois !
!                                                                       !
!"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away"-- Tom Waits  !

dfenyes@thesis1.med.uth.tmc.edu (David Fenyes) (05/23/91)

quairoli@cs.widener.edu (Patrick Quairoli) writes:


>	has anyone had any problems installing a dot matrix printer with
>coherent.  i can't seem to cat file >lpt1  or lpr file
>the system keeps giving me an error such as 'can not open device' , 
>or 'permission denied'.  any ideas will be appriecated.

Are you using the clam shell?  I found that I had the same problem with
clam (unless I logged in as root).  If this is the case, maybe aliasing
something like '/bin/sh -c lpr $1' to lpr would help. (I can't remember
the clam equiv. of $*)

David
-------
David Fenyes                                 dfenyes@thesis1.med.uth.tmc.edu
University of Texas Medical School           Houston, Texas