Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!milo.mcs.anl.gov!sirius.mcs.anl.gov!winans From: winans@sirius.mcs.anl.gov (John Winans) Newsgroups: comp.os.coherent Subject: Re: Installing a printer. Message-ID: <1991May17.163659.24229@mcs.anl.gov> Date: 17 May 91 16:36:59 GMT References: Sender: news@mcs.anl.gov Organization: Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, Illinois Lines: 44 Nntp-Posting-Host: sirius.mcs.anl.gov In article 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 !