David Campbell (campbell@gear.torque.net)
Fri, 21 May 1999 09:51:24 +0800
To all concerned,
ZIP Driver Update
=====================
I have just made the necessary changes to the ppa (Older parallel
port ZIP drives) and the imm (newer parallel port ZIP drives) to
handle problems some people are having with the EPP protocol. The
update has been uploaded to:
http://www.torque.net/~campbell/ppa/ppa0204.tar.gz
NOTE: This is intended for 2.2.x and 2.3.x kernels, suggest copying
imm.c, imm.h, ppa.c and ppa.h to /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/ and
recompile the kernel/modules.
A back port for Linux 2.0.x will be done shortly. Distribution
specific updates (eg: RPM files for RedHat) could be a few weeks away.
Changes Made
================
As a result of these changes some people will notice a decrease in
data transfer rates, this is due to the default EPP mode being the
slowest available (the default was the fastest). The kernel config
option to change the EPP mode used has been removed and replaced by a
/proc entry option. To enable fast EPP use the following command
after the driver has been loaded:
echo "fastepp=1" > /proc/scsi/imm/0
Where "imm" is either "imm" or "ppa" depending on the hardware driver
used. The "0" represents the first interface, the drivers can support
more than one device providing the drives are located on seperate
parallel ports.
ZIP Drive Support Matrix
============================
Parallel Port ZIP Drives (pre Sept 1998) ppa driver
Parallel Port ZIP Drives (post Sept 1998) imm driver
ZIP Plus Drives imm driver
ZIP 250 Drives imm driver
SCSI ZIP drives scsi interface driver
ATAPI ZIP drives ATAPI floppy driver
USB ZIP drives FreeBSD?!? (#)
(#) The USB support in the Linux kernel changes on a daily basis, the
kernel config option in Linux 2.3.3 states that it is "not for the
faint hearted". Apparently FreeBSD has a working USB system but not
with all the features that people are trying to force into the Linux
implementation.
Missing .config file problem
================================
Some people report the makefile in the ppa02##.tar.gz fails due to a
missing /usr/src/linux/.config file. This file contains the kernel
configuration and is referenced to determine the proper options for
module compilation (eg: kernel version support). The file can be
created by "make menuconfig" or "make xconfig" in the kernel source
directory (/usr/src/linux) and exiting, make sure that you have
installed the kernel source files for your distribution.
Problem Reporting
=====================
This is a few items to check before reporting problems:
1) Check the kernel messages for parport messages
1.1) No parport messages indicates that the parport module is
not loaded or compiled in the kernel
1.2) No parport hardware probe messages indicates that the low
level driver loaded. Try "insmod parport_pc", or enable
PC parallel port hardware support in the kernel configuration
2) Check the kernel messages and determine if the driver detected
the parallel/SCSI interface (the message "Attempting to connect to
ID #" means that the parallel/SCSI interface was detected). If you
can confirm that the driver has found a parallel/SCSI interface
then send me a copy of the output from the "dmesg" command.
Otherwise I might ask you to check that the drive is plugged in
and powered (in not such polite words).
I am about to look through my backlog of 3 weeks email...
David Campbell
=======================================================
campbell@torque.net
"This is not an office, rather Hell with fluorescent lighting"
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu 20 May 1999 - 21:54:06 EDT