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ORINET XWT-PE2S1P PCIE serial/parallel card won't work

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  ORINET XWT-PE2S1P PCIE serial/parallel card won't work Chris <no.one@nowhere.invalid> - 2011-04-20 20:53 +0100
    Re: ORINET XWT-PE2S1P PCIE serial/parallel card won't work Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2011-04-20 13:35 -0700
      Re: ORINET XWT-PE2S1P PCIE serial/parallel card won't work Chris <no.one@nowhere.invalid> - 2011-04-25 08:43 +0100

#256 — ORINET XWT-PE2S1P PCIE serial/parallel card won't work

Well, that's what I wrote down while examining the card, but googling
for information (none of it useful, all of it in Russian) suggests that
what I should've written was ORIENT ...

Anyway, I have a year-old Athlon II system (an AM3 socket motherboard)
with a single serial port but no parallel port.  Having recently
resurrected an ancient printer (and bought several cartridges of toner
for next to nothing) I bought the expansion card, on which is written
XWT-PE2S1P (that's the only identification that I can find), so that I
could use the printer, but with one eye to the future (maybe my next
motherboard will have no PCI, no serial *and* no parallel).

The only problem is that the card won't work.  "lspci" tells me

   02:00.0 Serial controller: NetMos Technology Device 9912
   02:00.1 Serial controller: NetMos Technology Device 9912
   02:00.2 Parallel controller: NetMos Technology Device 9912

so the card is obviously seen, but my attempts to configure either
the printer, or an external dial-up modem on one of the serial ports,
have all failed.  Mandriva Configuration Centre (I think that's what
it's called) refuses to accept that the card provides either a parallel
or a serial port; the modem works fine on the inbuilt serial port.

Such documentation as I can find on the mini-CD which accompanies the
card talks about recompiling the kernel (way beyond my abilities), but
seems to refer to nothing later than version 2.6.20, whereas the 64-bit
Mandriva on my hard disc seems to be 2.6.33, while the recent 32-bit
"live" PCLOS DVD may be even more recent, and I'd hoped, indeed expected,
that support would by now be built in.

Short of sending it back to Hong Kong in the hope of obtaining a refund,
what do the experts suggest?



Chris

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#257

On 04/20/2011 12:53 PM, Chris wrote:
> Well, that's what I wrote down while examining the card, but googling
> for information (none of it useful, all of it in Russian) suggests that
> what I should've written was ORIENT ...

	Try this
<http://linuxhardware.net/linuxhardware/notes/>

	And look around the pages and you might
find it recently supported or not supported.
Look for the specific chips.

	Next time check it out before you buy.
>
> Anyway, I have a year-old Athlon II system (an AM3 socket motherboard)
> with a single serial port but no parallel port.  Having recently
> resurrected an ancient printer (and bought several cartridges of toner
> for next to nothing) I bought the expansion card, on which is written
> XWT-PE2S1P (that's the only identification that I can find), so that I
> could use the printer, but with one eye to the future (maybe my next
> motherboard will have no PCI, no serial *and* no parallel).
>
> The only problem is that the card won't work.  "lspci" tells me
>
>     02:00.0 Serial controller: NetMos Technology Device 9912
>     02:00.1 Serial controller: NetMos Technology Device 9912
>     02:00.2 Parallel controller: NetMos Technology Device 9912
>
> so the card is obviously seen, but my attempts to configure either
> the printer, or an external dial-up modem on one of the serial ports,
> have all failed.  Mandriva Configuration Centre (I think that's what
> it's called) refuses to accept that the card provides either a parallel
> or a serial port; the modem works fine on the inbuilt serial port.
>
> Such documentation as I can find on the mini-CD which accompanies the
> card talks about recompiling the kernel (way beyond my abilities), but
> seems to refer to nothing later than version 2.6.20, whereas the 64-bit
> Mandriva on my hard disc seems to be 2.6.33, while the recent 32-bit
> "live" PCLOS DVD may be even more recent, and I'd hoped, indeed expected,
> that support would by now be built in.
>
> Short of sending it back to Hong Kong in the hope of obtaining a refund,
> what do the experts suggest?
>
>
>
> Chris

	later
	bliss

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#272

In message <iong38$kn8$1@dont-email.me>
          Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:

> On 04/20/2011 12:53 PM, Chris wrote:

>> Well, that's what I wrote down while examining the card, but googling
>> for information (none of it useful, all of it in Russian) suggests that
>> what I should've written was ORIENT ...

No, I've since checked, and it really does say "ORINET".


> 	Try this
> <http://linuxhardware.net/linuxhardware/notes/>

Thanks for the suggestion, but I failed to find anything helpful.


> 	And look around the pages and you might find it recently
> supported or not supported.

Well, it seems once to have been supported, by "modprobe parport_pc ..."
for the parallel port, and by recompiling the kernel for the serial
ports, but neither works on a recent version of linux: parport_pc does
nothing [1], while the compilation fails because of a mismatch between
the supplied code and current kernel header files.


> Look for the specific chips.

NetMos/MOSChip 9912.  It's part of a large family of chips which seems
to be widely supported, if the advertisements of those selling them,
or, indeed, MOSChip themselves, are to be believed.  It's unhelpful that
many relevant areas of MOSChip's website seem to be accessible only to
corporate clients.


> 	Next time check it out before you buy.

But how?  Finding hard facts on, say, printers is relatively easy, but
simple expansion cards seem to be largely ignored by the compilers of
compatibility lists.  If I want to spend $100 I can buy a branded,
well-documented expansion card which would undoubtedly work, but, by
following that route, I'd probably end up paying more for the simplest
of cards than I paid for the motherboard!

Despite my attempts to buy a card which uses a "supported" chip, I've
come unstuck.  I'm surprised, if it ever worked, that there's no sign
in linux-land of anyone who's actually using one, and has the knowledge
and skills to keep the drivers up to date.



[1] Actually parport_pc does something, although it's not very useful.

My copy of Mandriva seems to be capable of supporting up to four
parallel ports, /dev/lp0, dev/lp1 ..., and, if I try something like
"cat SomeFile >/dev/lp0" (lp1, lp2, lp3), it tells me "No such device
or address".

After loading parport_pc, "cat SomeFile >/dev/lp0" does nothing: no error
message, but no print.  OTOH "cat SomeFile >/dev/lp1" sends the file to
the printer, while lp2 and lp3 still produce the error message.

But I still can't configure a printer on that port.



Chris

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