Linux PCMCIA Card Services

i have a sony z600lek and could install red hat 8 flawlessly from the notebooks only pcmcia-cdrom, means red hat 8 autodetected this drive.

strange enough, red hat 9 has massive problmes with the cdrom, it hickups when autoprobe is on and if i start the installation with "noprobe", rh9 wants to have a driver which i don't have. i tried the "pcmciadd"-floppybootimage contained on cd1, but it didn't help-the needed driver was not on there.

i also don't have the possibility to do networkinstall or from hd, because i have laready deleted the iso-files after i finished bruning in order to save space!

anyone any ides how i still might get it work?

thx!

It is really hard to diagnose problems with installation tools. I believe that this sort of CD-ROM gets configured by the BIOS to look like an ordinary IDE device, which would indicate not using the "pcmciadd" boot image.

I am not familiar with the precise technical definition of a "hiccup" in this situation so perhaps you should be more specific.

If you still have RH8 on the laptop, can't you use it to copy the CD's to some place on the hard drive and do an install from those images?

-- Dave

actually, it freezes at the hardware-detection rather than "hiccups"...

"can't you use it to copy the CD's to some place on the hard drive"

afaik for an installation from hd, you need the iso images:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/install-guide/s1-begininstall-hd.html

so how do i copy the cd's that they become three iso-files again, or shall i simply copy the content of the cd's in one folder?

thx.

Oh... it used to be that an HD install didn't require the ISO images directly.

I'd think you could simply do:

dd if=/dev/cdrom of=something.iso

to recreate an ISO image from a CD. It's just a direct copy.

-- Dave

ok,

thank you very much, it worked!

but now, of course, rh9 doesn't recognize the cd-rom, means i can't mount it. when booting normally from hd with the cd-rom connected, it seems rh9 is recognizing it, but doesn't mount it, and i can't mount it manually because it is not registered in the resp. directories.
so will it be enough to add it manually in /etc/fstab and /etc/mtab (if yes, with which parameters), or do i have to install the latest pcmcia-drivers?

thx.

What do you mean when you say "it seems rh9 is recognizing it", exactly?

What happens (i.e. what beeps do you hear, what messages do you get in your system log) when you plug the drive in after booting?

-- Dave

hi,

sorry for not responding earlier.
when booting, rh9 says "starting pcmcia"-the light of the cdrom turns on, cd begins to spin, then comes message "Yenta IRQList 0cb8, PCIirq 9". after that, cd stops spinning and, as said before, i can't mount it in gnome.

when i shutdown, i get message "cardmgr [720]: exiting-unloading Kernel Card Services"

best regards.

That's the only PCMCIA message (the one from Yenta?) It shouldn't be. There should also be messages from cardmgr. Also I asked, what beeps do you hear when you plug the card in?

Boot with the card out, then run "tail -f /var/log/messages", then insert the card, to separate out all the boot crap from what happens when you plug the card in.

-- Dave

output of "tail -f/var/log/messages":

Mai 27 18:25:24 localhost su(pam_unix)[3826]: session opened for user root by timko(uid=500)
May 27 18:25:44 localhost cardmgr[734]: socket 0: Ninja ATA
May 27 18:25:44 localhost cardmgr[734]: executing: 'modprobe ide-cs'
May 27 18:25:44 localhost kernel: ide-cs: GetNextTuple: No more items
May 27 18:25:45 localhost cardmgr[734]: get dev info on socket 0 failed: Resource temporarily unavailable

there are no beeps/sounds whatsoever either when booting with the cdrom or when plugging it in while already running!

Can you post the output of 'dump_cis' with this card plugged in?

-- Dave

hm, "command not found"?!
i tried under my normal account as well as root, also just "dump" with the same result.
dump 0.4b28-7 is installed, though...

Err 'dump' is something completely different.

Try '/sbin/dump_cis'.

-- Dave

output of "/sbin/dump_cis":

Socket 0:
dev_info
fn_specific 100ns, 512b
vers_1 4.1, " ", "NinjaATA-", "V1.0", "AP00 "
config base 0x0200 mask 0x0003 last_index 0x23
cftable_entry 0x21 [default]
Vcc Vnom 5V Iavg 150mA
timing wait 1500ns
io 0x0180-0x0187, 0x0386-0x0387 [lines=16] [8bit] [16bit] [range]
irq mask 0xd068 [level]
memory 0x0000-0x0fff @ 0x0000
cftable_entry 0x22
io 0x0190-0x0197, 0x0396-0x0397 [lines=16] [8bit] [16bit] [range]
irq mask 0xd068 [level]
memory 0x0000-0x0fff @ 0x0000
cftable_entry 0x23
io 0x01a0-0x01a7, 0x03a6-0x03a7 [lines=16] [8bit] [16bit] [range]
irq mask 0xd068 [level]
memory 0x0000-0x0fff @ 0x0000

The card says it works at these three sets of IO addresses:

io 0x0180-0x0187, 0x0386-0x0387
io 0x0190-0x0197, 0x0396-0x0397
io 0x01a0-0x01a7, 0x03a6-0x03a7

Can you tell, from /proc/ioports, whether any of these are actually free on your system?

-- Dave

seems like they're all free (/proc/ioports):

0000-001f : dma1
0020-003f : pic1
0040-005f : timer
0060-006f : keyboard
0070-007f : rtc
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00bf : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
01f0-01f7 : ide0
0378-037a : parport0
03c0-03df : vga+
03f6-03f6 : ide0
03f8-03ff : serial(auto)
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
1040-105f : Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI
4000-40ff : PCI CardBus #02
4400-44ff : PCI CardBus #02
8000-803f : Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI
e000-efff : PCI Bus #01
e800-e8ff : ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x
fc00-fc3f : Yamaha Corporation YMF-744B [DS-1S Audio Controller]
fc60-fc7f : Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB
fc60-fc7f : usb-uhci
fca0-fca7 : Conexant HSF 56k Data/Fax Modem (Mob WorldW SmartDAA)
fcac-fcaf : Yamaha Corporation YMF-744B [DS-1S Audio Controller]
fcb0-fcbf : Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE
fcb0-fcb7 : ide0
fcb8-fcbf : ide1
fcc0-fcff : Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100]
fcc0-fcff : e100

bump.

bump!

Sorry, I do not know what else to tell you. I don't see a good reason for why this card would work with RH8 and then stop working.

-- Dave

ok then,

nevertheless, thanks for help.

I guess, one thing you could try, would be to install the latest pcmcia-cs package (don't change anything in your kernel, but do install the Red Hat kernel-source RPM). Follow all the usual build instructions, then cd to the clients directory and do "make ide-cs.o". Then copy this by hand to /lib/modules/.../kernel/drivers/ide and see if that behaves any differently than the Red Hat-supplied module.

-- Dave