Problems sharing parallel port with 4.8-STABLE

[Pete French]

I am trying to share a single parallel printer between a Windows XP
machine and a FreeBSD machine using one of those auto-changeover
parallel port switches. When both machines are running Windows
this works fine, but when one of the machines is running FreeBSD
then that machine hogs the connection permanently.

I managed to stop it doing this by configuring the kernel so that
it forces the port into EPP mode, which stopped it immediately
hogging the port at boot, but doing anything to the device then
grabs the port and doesnt let go, so this hasnt really solved it.

I am working in the dark somewhat as I have no idea what criteria
the prt-switching unit uses to determine which port to use. All I
can see is that the red light indicating the currently active port comes
on and stays on.

The XP machine is using its parallel port in EPP mode. The FreeBSD machine
is a Compaq Deskpro EN, with the BIOS set to use the parallel port in
ECP+EPP mode.

All suggestions welcome! Has anyone seen a problem like this before, or
does anyone have a parallel port sharing unit working with FreeBSD ?

-pcf.

PS: The printer is actually a combined printer/scanner which is why I cant just
connect it to he BSD box and use that as a print serevr with Samba sadly.