[rhelv6-list] Parallel Port Support

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Stephen John Smoogen <smooge at gmail.com> said:
> a) RHEL-6 has many requirements requiring newer computers
> b) Those newer computers do not have parallel ports

Yeah, but... parallel port hardware drivers are still included (which is
nice for me because I use the parallel port to get GPS-based pulse per
second signals for high-accuracy clocks).  It is only lp (the line
printer device) that was dropped.

Now, it may be that somebody removed lp and forgot to remove parport_pc
and friends, and they'll remove parport_pc/etc. once they realize this,
(which would be highly aggravating to me), or maybe dropping lp is
somehow an oversight (that would reflect poorly on RHEL QA, since
comparing module lists from one release to another should IMHO be a
basic step).

Either way, I can't think of many uses (other than what I'm doing) for a
parallel port that don't involve a printer (and thus lp).

Oh, I just looked at module dependencies, and found maybe one reason
parport_pc is still there.  I have seen some PCI/PCIe serial cards that
use a chipset that is common to both serial and parallel cards.  The
driver for those is parport_serial, which depends on parport_pc.

-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.