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Date:      Sun, 2 Dec 2001 13:20:01 -0500
From:      Alan Eldridge <alane@geeksrus.net>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   parallel port i/o hogs cpu badly; is this normal?
Message-ID:  <20011202132001.A42382@wwweasel.geeksrus.net>

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I have an HP postsript laser (2100M) on a parallel intfc.

[alane ~]$ uname -a
FreeBSD wwweasel.geeksrus.net 4.4-RELEASE FreeBSD 4.4-RELEASE #0: Sun Oct 28
04:44:34 EST 2001
root@wwweasel.geeksrus.net:/usr/src-4.4-RELEASE/sys/compile/WWWEASEL  i386

[alane ~]$ grep -i parallel /var/run/dmesg.boot
ppc0: <Parallel port> at port 0x378-0x37f irq 7 on isa0

When I print a document that is heavy in graphics, it's large.
Multi-megabytes. That's expected 'cause postscript is verbose.

But what surprises me is that copying that data to the parallel intfc burns
up an incredible amount of CPU. Until the document is printed, there's a
steady bg buzz of ~10% CPU use, with periods of 50% and even 100% CPU
utilization by the 'parallel'[1] process. The load is sufficient that it locks
out the mouse on X (interrupt blocking?).

Anyone care to comment? Does this sound normal? Is there a way to reduce the
amount of CPU needed to drive the parallel port?

Notes:
[1] /usr/local/libexec/cups/backend/parallel is the device interface using
by the print/cups package.

-- 
Alan Eldridge
#include <cstdlib>
free(sklyarov);

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