Ubuntu

VMWare will not connect to local parallel port in Ubuntu 6.10

Asked by GDICKINSON

I am a Windows network administrator with the State of Texas. I am also new to Linux as well.

I am trying to virtualize our existing Windows 98 workstations and host them as virtual machines on Ubuntu Linux 6.10 desktop systems running VMWare Player. We have a number of "special" (read Unisys) applications that require Windows 98 to work properly so getting rid of 98 has proved difficult (read no money here). Given the instability of Windows 98, we hope to provide workstation recovery times in the minutes instead of days and provide additional functionality to the user through a stable workstation platform.

So far I have, I have created a working Windows 98 vm with all the required software installed and working. This vm was created on a Windows 2000 machine using VMWare Workstation 5.5. Currently, a parallel port is "installed" in the virtual machine but it does not automatically connect to the local parallel port. VMWare Tools are installed.

I have built a test machine running Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) and installed VMWare Player 1.0.2 for linux successfully. One word describes it...Wow!

I have copied the Windows 98 virtual machine to the vmware directory on the Ubuntu box and started it in the VMWare Player. The 98 vm runs the applications perfectly. However I can not get the 98 vm to access the Linux host systems local parallel port so the Windows 98 vm can utilize locally attached printers. When the 98 vm is off, the attached printer works fine under Linux.

So far...
I have built the Windows 98 virtual machine with the parallel port, not automatically connecting, because every time I start the vm, I get an error when it trys to connect to the parallel port.
I have also built and tried it with the parallel port set to auto connect.
I have tried installing VMWare Server for Linux and run the 98 vm there.
I have made attempts at applying the fixes supplied by VMWare as well.

For us to be able to virtualize our existing Windows desktop, I must have a working local parallel port that my Windows 98 machine can use for local printing at the workstation. This is the missing piece.

Any help will be most appreciated.

Gerald Dickinson
Texas Real Estate Commission
Austin, Texas

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williamts99 (williamts99) said : 		#1

Though this is not a real fix, but a workaround, hopefully a real answer will come soon. Maybe you have a network print server laying around that could be of use. Something like
http://www.netgear.com/Products/PrintServers/WiredPrintServers/PS101.aspx?detail=System+Requirements
Another thing that you could do is to install the printer in Ubuntu, and then set it up as a shared printer(Ubuntu becomes your print server). This might just work out really well for you.

If these comments have solved your problem, please consider marking this request as answered. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SupportRequests contains useful information about managing your support request.

If you are still having problems, let us know and we'll keep working on them.

Best Regards,

Williamts99

Revision history for this message
GDICKINSON (gerry-dickinson) said : 		#2

Thank you for responding.

I have determined that the 98 vm will print to shared printers on the
network. Adding printer servers at each location will work, but it would
not be practical due to the expense involved. So any solution will need to
be cheap, read free here!

Your second idea sounds like a good one. However, I am embarrassed to say
that I have not been able to configure such a setup. I have created the
local printer and printed a test page under Ubuntu. No problem there.
However, I have been unsuccessful at attaching my Window98 vm to it.
Window98 does not have direct IP printing capability natively. So I am
assuming here that I might need samba. Am I correct?

Gerry Dickinson
Network Specialist
Texas Real Estate Commission

-----Original Message-----
From: williamts99 [mailto:<email address hidden>]
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 2:54 AM
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [Support #2464]: Re: VMWare will not connect to local parallel port
in Ubuntu 6.10

Support request #2464 on Ubuntu changed:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+ticket/2464

Comment:
Though this is not a real fix, but a workaround, hopefully a real answer
will come soon. Maybe you have a network print server laying around that
could be of use. Something like
http://www.netgear.com/Products/PrintServers/WiredPrintServers/PS101.aspx?de
tail=System+Requirements
Another thing that you could do is to install the printer in Ubuntu, and
then set it up as a shared printer(Ubuntu becomes your print server). This
might just work out really well for you.

If these comments have solved your problem, please consider marking this
request as answered. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SupportRequests contains
useful information about managing your support request.

If you are still having problems, let us know and we'll keep working on
them.

Best Regards,

Williamts99

Revision history for this message
williamts99 (williamts99) said : 		#3

When you go to System>Admin>Printing there is a menu for global settings and in that menu it says Share Printers, select this and you will be able to configure your printers through http://localhost:631/

Revision history for this message
williamts99 (williamts99) said : 		#4

As far as the windows98 portion, I'm not really sure, I haven't used that in a really, really long time.

Revision history for this message
GDICKINSON (gerry-dickinson) said : 		#5

Success!

I have been able to use the local printer port on my Xubuntu host system
using VMWare Player for Linux running a Windows 98 virtual machine. It
really works well too. It even allows the PNP components in Windows 98 to
detect the attached printer.

I found some documentation at the VMWare site that has a summary type
procedure to configure the local lpt port for use by a VM. I will write up
a procedure on how to apply the modifications to Xubuntu 6.10 and send them
to you for review and posting if the process is deemed relavent. I will
leave that to you to decide.

Gerald Dickinson
Network Specialist II
Texas Real Estate Commission

-----Original Message-----
From: williamts99 [mailto:<email address hidden>]
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 1:49 PM
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [Support #2464]: RE: [Support #2464]: Re: VMWare will not connect
to local paralle l port in Ubuntu 6.10

Support request #2464 on Ubuntu changed:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+ticket/2464

Comment:
As far as the windows98 portion, I'm not really sure, I haven't used that in
a really, really long time.

Revision history for this message
GDICKINSON (gerry-dickinson) said : 		#6

After doing some more looking I have determined that you only need to make
two modifications of the Xubuntu 6.10 installation, to install and use
VMWare Player with the local printer. 1. rmmod lp ...to remove the lp
module. 2. Chmod 666 /dev/parport0 to give everyone read and write access
to the port. Right now I open a terminal, su, cd /, and issue the commands.
The LPT port under VMWare works great.

Be adviced that the following modules must be loaded. parport_pc parport
ppdev these packages load as part of the normal install, I think.

What I have not figured out yet is which script do I modify to prevent the
lp module from loading and how can I set the permissions of /dev/parport0 to
give everyone access AND make the changes permanent? It's really pretty
simple. I just don't know how to make these changes in Linux.

It should be easy to script. Might be benificial to have a script that
makes these changes for the user when they load VMWARE-Player.

Also, is there a document that explains in detail, the Boot Sequence? What
happens 1st. 2nd. 3rd....

Gerald Dickinson

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