Parallel port from docking station

[Squarewave]

I tried to get CentOS to install but kept running into errors, perhaps hardware compatibility errors.

So hopefully it'll work under Kubutnu then? I'll have a read of your link, I have a Galep 4 also I could try.

[Postal2]

To check the laptop when buying, you need:
1. USB floppy drive with ms-dos 6.20 diskette.
2. Covox.
3.

[MarkL]

Sorry for the delay.  I had a chance this morning to try kubuntu on the Dell M4400.  It finds the parallel port by itself; no coercing or special configuration needed.

One catch is that the laptop has to be plugged into the docking station at boot time.  If the laptop is booted and then put in the docking station, it does not automatically add the parallel port.

Below is the relevant lines from dmesg wrt the parallel port.  I can post the whole dmesg if there's other stuff in there you want to see.

I did not go so far as to try wine and the GALEP32 programmer software, but I don't have any reason to believe it wouldn't work with the parallel port recognized and drivers loaded as shown in dmesg.


...
[    0.835187] pnp: PnP ACPI init
[    0.835487] system 00:03: [io  0x0c80-0x0caf] has been reserved
[    0.835492] system 00:03: [io  0x0cc0-0x0cff] could not be reserved
[    0.835608] system 00:04: [mem 0xfed00000-0xfed003ff] has been reserved
[    0.869525] pnp 00:06: [dma 1]
[    0.878880] system 00:07: [io  0x0cb0-0x0cbb] has been reserved
[    0.878885] system 00:07: [mem 0xfed40000-0xfed44fff] has been reserved
[    0.881711] system 00:08: [io  0x0900-0x092f] has been reserved
[    0.881715] system 00:08: [io  0x0931-0x0933] has been reserved
...
[   11.037481] lp: driver loaded but no devices found
[   11.049478] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver
[   11.056683] parport_pc 00:06: reported by Plug and Play ACPI
[   11.056794] parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7, dma 1 [PCSPP,TRISTATE,COMPAT,EPP,ECP,DMA]
[   11.063141] systemd-journald[764]: Received client request to flush runtime journal.
[   11.153598] lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).
...

[Squarewave]

Thanks, but if you get a chance can you try wine and gallep? As I found it just didn't work for me on my laptop, it wouldn't communicate.

[MarkL]

I will give it a try over the next day or two.

I'm noticing that kubuntu has loaded the lp driver, which is claiming parport0.  Under CentOS 6.8, the lp driver is not loaded.  Perhaps the lp driver is interfering with wine/GALEP32.

If you've gotten this far and see the parallel port in dmesg, AND the message about lp0 using parport0, you might try unloading the lp driver.  As root:

  # rmmod lp

[MarkL]

I owe you an apology.  After going through many upgrades of CentOS, Codeweavers wine, real wine, and the Galep32 programmer software without a hitch over the years, I assumed it would continue to work fine.  Apparently, the latest of everything was too large a jump.

I tried a lot of combinations of wine and the Codeweavers wine, but I can't get any of them to work on kubuntu 24.0.  The galep32.exe application will run but it will not find the parallel port.

Using the "strace" utility, which can trap file opens, it does not appear that wine is trying to open /dev/parport0, even when using the working wine run-time configuration from Centos 6.8.  So, my suspicion is that something happened to wine itself over the years.  Maybe they removed support for the parallel port?  Or now it needs to be explicitly configured somewhere?  I'm learning how to work the wine trace utility for more insight.

So, specifically, here's what is currently working:

  CentOS 6.8
  Codeweavers wine (their product is called "Crossover") 16.2.0-1
  Conitec GALEP32 programmer software 1.20.07 (this is the latest)

I need to solve this problem of ongoing support for myself too.  Unfortunately, CentOS is a disaster because RedHat acquired CentOS several years ago and essentially eradicated it.  So it's not a good place to start.

According to this:

  https://www.codeweavers.com/about/news/press/20170323

Crossover 16.2 is actually wine 2.0 under the covers.  So, what I'm going to try next is a Ubuntu from that era, probably Ubuntu 16.04.7 LTS, to see if a I can get wine 2.0 and galep32 running under it.  After I find a starting point, then it can be a matter of incrementing versions until it breaks.

I also came across another "how to" regarding galep32 and wine, this time from the manufacturer of the programmer:

  http://www.conitec.net/xpages/galep_wine.htm

They have an additional step of enabling native support for msvcrt.dll, msvcrt60.dll, and msvcrt80.dll.  I needed to enable msvcrt.dll to get galep32 to run in some of the combinations I tried.


If you are interested, I will continue to post findings in this thread.  If this is too involved, that's fine and we can just leave it here as a dead end.

There's always the option of a new programmer that uses USB.  I have the XGecu Pro.  It doesn't have the broad set of old devices that the GALEP-4 has, but it does work fine on a modern system.  Conitec offers the GALEP-5 with USB and native Linux support, but it's quite expensive.

[Postal2]

A game?

Absolutely right.

[MarkL]

I made and interesting discovery after looking at the wine source code.  Support for the parallel port was deleted with little fanfare starting in version 5.5, along with a slew of other DOS-level compatibility.  No provision was made that I can find to report an error if someone tried to use it.  Thanks a bunch.

So, now the trick is to find a Ubuntu release that includes wine 5.4 or earlier.

[Squarewave]

Thanks for the update, that's interesting that the parallel port was removed from wine.

So I wonder if we used an older Ubuntu, if it would download an earlier wine?

[Postal2]

Squarewave, if you noticed, MarkL is testing on a laptop that can run Windows XP natively. And if you're worried about not being able to connect a joystick, the game doesn't require a joystick.

[Squarewave]

If it's an analogy, I'm not sure I'm understanding.

But it's given me an idea......put Ubuntu back on, then put a 32bit XP in a VM and try.....

[Postal2]

But it's given me an idea.....

Your idea obviously won't work. It's a different matter if you enjoy doing these useless actions.

[Squarewave]

But it's given me an idea.....

Your idea obviously won't work. It's a different matter if you enjoy doing these useless actions.

Why not? If the OS will allow access to the port but only Wine blocks it, then if I use an older VM with parallel port, why wouldn't it work?

[Postal2]

Why not? ...

Theoretically, this is possible, but let me remind you that Creative Labs bought Ensoniq in order to have access to such drivers.

[Squarewave]

Why not? ...

Theoretically, this is possible, but let me remind you that Creative Labs bought Ensoniq in order to have access to such drivers.

Why does that stop anyone else from having access?

[Postal2]

Why does that stop anyone else from having access?

It doesn't stop anyone, but you have to be very smart and have a lot of time. It's much easier to run a good game on your laptop.

[Squarewave]

I'm not really much of a gamer these days, but if I can, I'd love to set up an old computer for playing the games I used to as a kid, such as command and conquer.

At work we still have some Pentium 1 PCs which haven't been used for years, I may take one home and set it up for some C&Q.

[Postal2]

I'll give you the path in a private message now, and you'll see the name of the game (please don't announce it publicly). It requires w10x64 and your laptop will run it just fine.

Now you have a link to the game, you can use it at any time, after you get tired of doing what you are doing.

[MarkL]

Ok, here's a step-by-step that works on the Dell M4400, starting from a blank system.  The version of Ubuntu below is LTS (long term support), so patches are still being provided and the repositories are still there.  However, it's going to be unsupported soon in April 2025, unless you subscribe to Ubuntu support (free for personal use they say, but I've never used it).  If I'm reading the support policy right, the repositories should still be around for another 5 years after that until end of life.

This is the last LTS version that has wine with the parallel port support.  It doesn't mean there aren't more possible combinations out there, including rebuilding wine-5.0 on a later version of Linux, but it can lead to a deep rabbit hole of package dependencies.  Sticking with a Ubuntu version that has the wine that's needed, and in the default repositories, is the easiest way.

At any rate, here ya go:

Install Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS (Focal Fossa)

Once installed, check that you have a /dev/parport0.  If you don't, Ubuntu is not detecting one on your system, so don't bother with the rest of this.  At least for me, the laptop needs to be in the docking station at boot time for the parallel port to appear.

/dev/parport0 requires specific access permissions for read and write.  You can change the permission on this file, which is not persistent from boot to boot, or you can put yourself into the group "lp" which has the correct permissions:

  sudo adduser YOURUSERNAME lp

Note!  You will need to reboot for the new group membership to be effective.  The final steps below will fail if you haven't done this.  You can use the command "groups" to make sure "lp" appears as one of your groups after rebooting.

Install package: wine 5.0-3ubuntu1

Install package: playonlinux 4.3.4-1ubuntu1

PlayOnLinux is a graphical front-end for configuration of wine and management of wine applications.  It makes dealing with wine painless.

Launch PlayOnLinux.  It has a long default list of applications it knows about, but galep32 is unfortunately not one of them.

Select: Install a non-listed program

Select: Install a program in a new virtual drive

Pick a name like galep32 or whatever you want for the virtual drive.

Check the box: Configure Wine

Select: 32 bits windows installation

A "Wine configuration" window should come up.

Select windows version (at the bottom): Windows 98

Select the "Libraries" tab.

From the "New override for library" pull-down, select "msvcrt" from the very long list and press "Add".  Close the window with "OK".

The manual installation window should come up next.  Select "Browse" and choose the Conitec Galep installer "G32setup_12007.exe".  That is the latest version and is available here if you don't have it:

  https://www.conitec.com/en/community-products/downloads.html

Wine should now launch the installer.  Take all the installer defaults.  It will take about 5 minutes to install.  When done, UNCHECK "Launch GALEP32", and select "Finish".

The next window will be shortcut configuration.  Choose "Galep32.exe" and then "Next", take the default name "galep32" then "Next".  When prompted for another shortcut, select "I don't want to make another shortcut", and then "Next".

The PlayOnLinux window should still be open and "Galep32" should now appear as a choice.  Click once on "Galep32" and select "Configure".  From the configuration window select "Wine" at the top, and then click on "Registry Editor".

In the registry editor, create a new key:

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER --> Software --> Wine --> VDM

And then create another new key under the newly created "VDM" key:

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER --> Software --> Wine --> VDM --> ppdev

Under the "ppdev" key, create a new string value "378".  Then give that string a data value of "/dev/parport0" by right clicking in the "Data" column and selecting "Modify".  If this procedure is not clear, here is an example screen shot of the registry entries you're aiming for:

  http://www.conitec.net/xpages/galep_wine.htm

Close the registry editor and the wine configuration window.

Plug the GALEP-4 programmer into the parallel port and power it on.

Go to the PlayOnLinux window (should still be open) and run "Galep32" by double clicking on it or by clicking once and select "Run".

Galep32 should launch and ask what language you prefer.  After you choose, it should find the GALEP-4 programmer plugged into the parallel port and turn the status LED on the programmer from red to green.  The galep32 application should say the GALEP-4 was detected and some additional info about reading calibration tables, etc.

That should be it!

EDIT: Changed group membership command to "adduser" (safer).  Plus membership alterations need a reboot (not just log out then log in).  Maybe there's a workaround for that, but I haven't seen it.

EDIT#2: Minor typo: doubled "sudo" - fixed.

[Squarewave]

Mark, thanks so much for the detailed write up. Will have a go at that soon 

[MarkL]

Mark, thanks so much for the detailed write up. Will have a go at that soon 

Great - let us know how it goes!

A couple of important modifications to the previous how-to posting:

- The previous incantation to add yourself to the "lp" group with the usermod command was missing the "-a" option.  "-a" says to append a new group.  Without it, it just *replaces* all the groups, which leaves the user without administration capabilities.  This is probably not what you want.

  Use the safer command instead: "sudo adduser YOURUSERNAME lp".

- There is a bug in Ubuntu (reported in at least 20.x and 24.x) that after modifying group membership, a reboot is required.  It used to be only a logout was needed.

I've edited the original post to include these changes.

EDIT: Minor typo.

[MarkL]

Here is another option for you.  I was able to (eventually) get this to work on Kubuntu 24.04.1 (LTS).

Built into PlayOnLinux is the ability to choose what version of Wine you want for an application.  It sounds like a great feature and just what was needed here since it could be used on any flavor and version of Linux.  But when I tried to configure it, I kept getting "Wine packages repository is unavailable", so I looked for other solutions.

There appears to be a bug in PlayOnLinux, at least in the versions I tried.  When invoked from the main window "Tools --> Manage Wine versions", it always results in the above error the first time.  However, if you close the configuration window and try again quickly after getting the error, it will work much of the time.  But not always.  Just be persistent.  Eventually it should work.

After you get the list in the "Available Wine versions" window on the left, you can choose "Wine 5.4" and click the arrow to move it into the "Installed Wine versions" on the right.  Confirm that's what you want in the popup window.  It will be downloaded and installed, and "Wine 5.4" should appear on the right.  Don't waste any time selecting "Wine 5.4" and getting the download started, or the download will fail.  If it does, you have to close the window and start again from "Manage Wine versions".

It's a very irritating bug.  Maybe it's a network issue from my location, but everything else seems to be ok.

You would do the above right after loading PlayOnLinux.  Once you have this version of Wine that supports the parallel port, you can pick up with the previous instructions.  (You will still need to fix access to /dev/parport0 as described.)

In the previous instructions, where it says:

  Check the box: Configure Wine

Also do:

  Check the box: Use another version of Wine

The next window that comes up will ask "Which version of Wine would you like to use?"  Select 5.4.

And then proceed with the rest of the how-to... "Select: 32 bits windows installation", etc.


If you absolutely cannot get the "Tools --> Manage Wine versions" to work, you can proceed with the how-to as written, which will use the system default version of Wine.  Then, you can try to load Wine 5.4 using a different menu.  To use this other menu, from the main PlayOnLinux window, click once on "Galep32" and then "Configure".  There will be a field called "Wine version" which will be set to "System".  If you click on the "+" sign to the right, it should bring up the "PlayOnLinux Wine versions manager", which is the same window as "Tools --> Manage Wine versions".

However, for some reason, when invoked this way it fails much less often, although you still might have to give it a couple of tries.  Just keep closing the versions manager window and clicking the "+" until you get it.

Once you have the list, select "Wine 5.4" and it should download and install it as above.  Then close the versions window and select 5.4 in the previous window, and then close that too.  It might do some re-configuring of your virtual drive to adapt it from the system default to version 5.4.

At this point you can try to launch Galep32 and it should find the parallel port.

[Postal2]

Mark, amazing work.
Squarewave, you can save your game progress or use hibernation to change your SSD.

[garrettm]

Bottles is probably the better Wine manager (different Wine versions are called "runners"). But maybe I'm biased as I've never used PlayOnLinux.

https://usebottles.com/

Also old versions of Wine can always be downloaded from WineHQ directly:

https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/

Finally, there is also Distrobox (and containers in general). You can install a stripped down legacy Ubuntu in Distrobox to get an old version of Wine that way:

https://distrobox.it/

Each method has its own issues though.

As for legacy gaming: DOSBox-X has worked great as a hypervisor for my Windows 98SE guest and has good DDraw acceleration for Diablo I and a few other DDraw games I played as a kid. For some reason old 2D DDraw games load modern CPU cores to 100% (Windows or Linux via Wine) and don't like Wine at all (regardless of what DDraw to OpenGL/Vulkan wrapper combo I use). Diablo I's main menu is a broken mess with Wine and on my 11th Gen intel i9 11900T pegs at 4.9GHz. Playing via DOSBox-X puts the CPU load at 20% (for that core/thread) and the menus work perfectly.

[MarkL]

Bottles is probably the better Wine manager (different Wine versions are called "runners"). But maybe I'm biased as I've never used PlayOnLinux.

https://usebottles.com/

Also old versions of Wine can always be downloaded from WineHQ directly:

https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/
...

Thanks for the additional pointers.

I haven't tried bottles.  This is the first time I tried the Wine version management on PlayOnLinux and I can't say I'm impressed.  Maybe I'll give bottles a try at some point.

Interesting build archive on WineHQ; I didn't see that before.  It's not the same list as PlayOnLinux.  On WineHQ there is no Wine 5.4 or less for the latest Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS (Noble Numbat), which we need for parallel port support.  It is however, available on PlayOnLinux (if you can get it to cooperate).