LP(4)                     Special files                     LP(4)

NAME
       lp - line printer devices

SYNOPSIS
       #include <linux/lp.h>

CONFIGURATION
       lp[0-2] are character devices for the parallel line print-
       ers; they have major number 6 and minor number  0-2.   The
       minor   numbers   correspond  to  the  printer  port  base
       addresses 0x03bc, 0x0378 and 0x0278.   Usually  they  have
       mode  220 and are owned by root and group lp.  You can use
       printer ports either  with  polling  or  with  interrupts.
       Interrupts  are recommended when high traffic is expected,
       e.g. for laser printers.  For usual  dot  matrix  printers
       polling will usually be enough.  The default is polling.

DESCRIPTION
       The following ioctl(2) calls are supported:

       int ioctl(int fd, LPTIME, int arg)
              Sets  the  amount  of  time  that the driver sleeps
              before rechecking the printer  when  the  printer's
              buffer  appears to be filled to arg.  If you have a
              fast printer, decrease this number; if you  have  a
              slow  printer  then  increase  it.  This is in hun-
              dredths of a second, the default 2 being 0.02  sec-
              onds.  It only influences the polling driver.

       int ioctl(int fd, LPCHAR, int arg)
              Sets  the  maximum  number  of busy-wait iterations
              which the polling driver does while waiting for the
              printer  to  get ready for receiving a character to
              arg.  If printing is too slow, increase  this  num-
              ber;  if  the  system  gets too slow, decrease this
              number.  The default is 1000.  It  only  influences
              the polling driver.

       int ioctl(int fd, LPABORT, int arg)
              If  arg  is  0,  the  printer  driver will retry on
              errors, otherwise it will abort.  The default is 0.

       int ioctl(int fd, LPABORTOPEN, int arg)
              If arg is 0, open(2) will be aborted on error, oth-
              erwise error will be ignored.  The  default  is  to
              ignore it.

       int ioctl(int fd, LPCAREFUL, int arg)
              If  arg  is  0,  then the out-of-paper, offline and
              error signals are  required  to  be  false  on  all
              writes, otherwise they are ignored.  The default is
              to ignore them.

       int ioctl(int fd, LPWAIT, int arg)
              Sets the number of busy waiting iterations to  wait
              before  strobing the printer to accept a just-writ-
              ten character, and the number of iterations to wait
              before  turning  the strobe off again, to arg.  The
              specification  says  this  time   should   be   0.5
              microseconds,  but  experience  has shown the delay
              caused by the code is  already  enough.   For  that
              reason,  the  default value is 0.  This is used for
              both the polling and the interrupt driver.

       int ioctl(int fd, LPSETIRQ, int arg)
              This ioctl()  requires  superuser  privileges.   It
              takes  an  int  containing the new IRQ as argument.
              As a side effect, the printer will be reset.   When
              arg is 0, the polling driver will be used, which is
              also default.

       int ioctl(int fd, LPGETIRQ, int *arg)
              Stores the currently used IRQ in arg.

       int ioctl(int fd, LPGETSTATUS, int *arg)
              Stores the value of the status port  in  arg.   The
              bits have the following meaning:

              LP_PBUSY     inverted busy input, active high
              LP_PACK      unchanged acknowledge input, active low
              LP_POUTPA    unchanged out-of-paper input, active high
              LP_PSELECD   unchanged selected input, active high
              LP_PERRORP   unchanged error input, active low

              Refer to your printer manual for the meaning of the
              signals.  Note that undocumented bits may  also  be
              set, depending on your printer.

       int ioctl(int fd, LPRESET)
              Resets the printer.  No argument is used.

FILES
       /dev/lp*

AUTHORS
       The  printer  driver was originally written by Jim Weigand
       and Linus Torvalds.  It was further improved by Michael K.
       Johnson.   The interrupt code was written by Nigel Gamble.
       Alan Cox modularised it.  LPCAREFUL, LPABORT,  LPGETSTATUS
       were added by Chris Metcalf.

SEE ALSO
       mknod(1), chown(1), chmod(1), tunelp(8), lpcntl(8)

                         January 15, 1995                       1