LP(4)                               Linux Programmer's Manual                               LP(4)



NAME
       lp - line printer devices

SYNOPSIS
       #include <linux/lp.h>

CONFIGURATION
       lp[0–2] are character devices for the parallel line printers; 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,  for example, 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
              hundredths  of  a second, the default 2 being 0.02 seconds.  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 number; if the system gets too slow, decrease this  num‐
              ber.  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, otherwise  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-written character, and the number of iterations to wait before turn‐
              ing 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(2)  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 undocu‐
              mented bits may also be set, depending on your printer.

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

FILES
       /dev/lp*

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

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.74 of the Linux man-pages project.  A  description  of  the
       project,  information  about  reporting  bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
       found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux                                       1995-01-15                                      LP(4)