Grant R. Guenther (grant@torque.net)
Sun, 14 Dec 1997 15:23:31 -0500 (EST)
ANNOUNCEMENT: Beta test of new parallel port IDE subsystem
I'm happy to announce the availability for beta testing of a new
unified subsystem for peripheral devices based on parallel port IDE
adapters. This subsystem will supersede the ad-hoc drivers for
various disk and CD-ROM devices that have been available from my
web site. In particular, it replaces the 'ez' and 'bpcd' drivers
currently found in the 2.1 kernels (which no longer work).
It also adds support for some devices not previously supported.
This package does not involve parallel port SCSI devices such as the
ZIP drive.
The package provides drivers for parallel port IDE disks (pd),
parallel port CD-ROM drives (pcd) and parallel port ATAPI disks (pf).
It also provides low-level protocol modules for (almost) all
parallel port IDE adapters currently on the market. The following
adapters are supported:
aten - ATEN EH-100 (HK)
bp - Microsolutions backpack (US)
comm - DataStor (old-type) "commuter" adapter (TW)
dstr - DataStor EP-2000 (TW)
epat - Shuttle EPAT (UK)
epia - Shuttle EPIA (UK)
frpw - Freecom Power (DE)
kbic - KingByte KBIC-951A and KBIC-971A (TW)
on20 - OnSpec 90c20 (US)
on26 - OnSpec 90c26 (US)
It is now a fairly easy matter to add new protocol modules as
other adapters surface. Although it is not yet ready to be
released, a driver (pt) for parallel port ATAPI tape devices is
also in development.
Drivers in this suite support the following name-brand products:
Imation SuperDisk LS-120 pf + epat
SyQuest EZ-135, EZ-230, SparQ (?) pd + epat
Avatar Shark pd + epat
MicroSolutions backpack CD-ROM pcd + bp
MicroSolutions backpack PD/CD pf + bp
MicroSolutions backpack hardrives pd + bp
FreeCom Power CD-ROM pcd + frpw
Many clone and no-name products are also supported.
Some notable exceptions: products from "Noveca" are not supported
and never will be. The products require "real-time" drivers that
cannot reasonably be implemented for Linux. Furthermore, Noveca
is out of business.
Parallel port ATAPI CD-R and CD-RW devices are not currently supported.
I'm looking into the issues involved.
I'm hoping to be able to submit this subsystem for inclusion in the
official kernel source tree before the end of the year, so
test reports are most welcome.
Please fetch
ftp://ftp.torque.net/pub/paride-0.94.tar.gz
and check it out !
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Grant R. Guenther grant@torque.net
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