user space - printer driver ?

[amith <amith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

hi all,
            i tried the following code on my computer. i tried it from 
a tutorial on the net. It explains the Linux-2.4 parallel port subsystem.

#include<linux/ppdev.h>
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<sys/ioctl.h>
.....

#define DEVICE_FILE "/dev/parport0"

main()
{

     int p_fd;
     p_fd =   open(DEVICE_FILE,O_RDWR);
          if(p_fd < 0)
       {
               perror(" in open ");
               exit(0);
       }


      if( ioctl(p_fd, PPCLAIM))
      {
             perror("in ioctl");
             exit(0);
       }

}


i'am planning to write a driver for it, so i decided to first understand 
the Parport subsystem on Linux-2.4. Now, ioctl() fails and perror reports :

in ioctl : no such device or address.

i get a message in /var/log/messages saying :

ppdev0: no associated port.

could someone explain why this could happen and how i could get out of 
this ?

cheers,
Amith

PS: i tried with parport0, parport1,parport2 - device files , without 
any change in errors :-( !
tried to print documents on my printer from Windows applications like 
MS-Word,  just to check whether the parallel port is working and iam 
able to print .