Parallel port install
At install (Debian), if support for a parallel port is required, is it better if the device that is going to be attached to it is plugged into that port at install time, or does it make no difference?
Is it necessary to configure module support explicitly for this?
Is it necessary to configure module support explicitly for this?
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Yes, thanks, those links do helpful. It seems odd that there is not more commentary on these module options generally ...
I just checked a my debian 3.0 server if parport0 exist to make sure what we are talking about and parport0 does not exist. I of course I have hardware parallel port on my server but I did not enable support for it during installation. The question is why should I install something automaticly what I will in most cases never use ? This is job for windows :-) But that is another story.
ASKER
>>The question is why should I install something automaticly what I will in most cases never use ?
That's certainly true, but the installation could be made simpler i'm sure. e.g. it should be reasonably simple to start *by default* with automatic support for all devices detected. The user could then be given the option to *subtract* support for various devices.
Indeed, i'm thinking of proceeding using this logic. Maybe i can start by examining the system from Knoppix and then reproducing this on install. The only thing i probably shall not use is the serial port. Maybe you may have some suggestions based on the following? (/proc and dmesg stuff)
http://www.cehjohnson.uklinux.net/aire/procstuff.txt
That's certainly true, but the installation could be made simpler i'm sure. e.g. it should be reasonably simple to start *by default* with automatic support for all devices detected. The user could then be given the option to *subtract* support for various devices.
Indeed, i'm thinking of proceeding using this logic. Maybe i can start by examining the system from Knoppix and then reproducing this on install. The only thing i probably shall not use is the serial port. Maybe you may have some suggestions based on the following? (/proc and dmesg stuff)
http://www.cehjohnson.uklinux.net/aire/procstuff.txt
is there something missing? probably not. You are right but I thing that you cant compare debian woody with knoppix. In my case I will never try build server based on Knoppix. Knoppix has to serve kernel compactible with every peace of hardware user got and that make it easy to use and that is also point of knoppix. But anyway is good to discuss about that .
ASKER
Do you follow debian-user btw? (list.debian.org). 'mirrored' as linux.debian.user
ASKER
The other thing that i found odd about the module configuration is that it seems to be a simple yes/no choice. I would have thought it might be something more like xconfig (yes/no/make loadable [or whatever])
ASKER
Thanks - sorry about the delay
ASKER
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-install-system.en.html#s-install-os
"You will first be prompted if you would like to load additional kernel modules from a vendor-supplied floppy. Most can skip this step, since it is only useful if there are some additional proprietary or non-standard modules which are needed for your hardware (for instance, for a specific SCSI controller)"
So i'm suprised that something as standard and fundamental as a parallel port would require explicit configuration.