Introduction

This is the Linux Parallel Port Programming HOWTO. The purpose of this document is to assist the programmer in writing Linux device drivers for peripherals that use the IEEE 1284 parallel port. It is intended to aid the development of user-space programs, but may be helpful for writing kernel drivers provided that the programmer is already familiar with the art of writing kernel modules. It includes information on the various parallel port communication protocols (SPP, PS/2, EPP, ECP, etc.) with programming information for writing drivers either through the Linux kernel's generic parallel port driver ppdev.c, or through direct low-level port access using the macros provided by the GNU C library.