Linux-Hardware Digest #508, Volume #13 Thu, 31 Aug 00 19:13:10 EDT
Contents:
Re: Iomega ZIP Drive problems... ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: CD-ROM woes (Chuck)
Re: flash/diskless Linux hardware project?? (Andrea Glorioso)
Re: Copying DVDs (A transfinite number of monkeys)
Re: custom print (PCL/PJL) commands (Duane)
Re: scsi bus resets with aic7xxx (David C.)
Re: Linksys LNE100TX weird behavior??? (Duane)
Re: HP CDWriter SCSI support (Duane)
Re: Zip100 Mount Problems - /dev/sda4 not a valid block device (Chris Rankin)
Re: low power linux devices ("Kurt M. Alonso")
Installing Linux on ASUS A7V Motherboard (Plasma Brain)
Re: CD-ROM woes ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Video acquisition ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: tape drives (David C.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Iomega ZIP Drive problems...
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 31 Aug 2000 13:20:57 -0700
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> This may be a dumb question, but did you remember to compile in ide-
> floppy support. Could the kernel be trying to load it as a regulare
> IDE drive?
>
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Bob Grimes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > >
> > > My ZIP drive is an internal IDE ZIP100 drive. It is NOT an ATAPA
> > > drive, just an IDE drive. This is what Gateway2000 used for internal
> > > ZIP drives before the ATAPA drives were available (back when my
> > > PPro200 was the fastest machine they had...).
> > >
> > > I assume that there are not that many ZIP drives like mine, so maybe
> > > the Linux kernel people aren't aware of this problem.
> > >
> > > If anyone comes up with a solution (other than "keep a zip disk in the
> > > drive at all times") I'd be very interested in it.
> > I have the same older ZIP100, internal. It is shown under OS/2 but not
> > under my Caldera OpenLinux 2.4.
Don't know about Bob, but I'm using a stock RedHat kernel. The ZIP
problem was not there on the original RH6.2 install, but has been
present on every RedHat update to the kernel since then.
I don't know if they include ide-floppy support, but I'll look into
it...
--
Eric Backus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://labejb.lks.agilent.com/
(425) 335-2495
------------------------------
From: Chuck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CD-ROM woes
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 16:32:36 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Chuck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> : The system freezes happen both when the CDROM is the only SCSI device
> : and termination is set, or when the SCSI hard drive is on the bus with it
> : set as terminator. Thus I don't think it has to do with termination, but
> : I will look into switching cables...thanks-Chuck
>
> Chuck ...
>
> You blow.
That was really unnecessary.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: flash/diskless Linux hardware project??
From: Andrea Glorioso <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 31 Aug 2000 17:08:40 +0200
alan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I am using a board produced by TAPR that takes a standard compact flash
> card and plugs into the IDE bus as a hard drive.
>
> I am running the linux router project on it.
>
> http://www.tapr.com (I think!) and follow the links for projects.
It's www.tapr.org, by the way.
How does it boot? Via LILO (possibly a modified version)? I've not had
very warm experiences with flash disks and LILO. :)
Bye,
--
Andrea Glorioso sama(at)aglorioso(dot)com
Padua, Italy
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (A transfinite number of monkeys)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Copying DVDs
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 20:48:38 GMT
On Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:24:34 -0400, Mark Lucas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: You'll need a DVD burner (about 5k) and you'll need to port the driver,
: most likely - anyone know of any DVD drivers out there?
We've got a recorder at the office. Hook it up and it goes. No extra
magic required, so long as you're using a kernel that includes the DVD
ioctls (either 2.2.16, or an earlier kernel+a patch).
cdrecord supports writing an image to a DVD-R drive too....
--
Jason Costomiris <>< | Technologist, geek, human.
jcostom {at} jasons {dot} org | http://www.jasons.org/
------------------------------
From: Duane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: custom print (PCL/PJL) commands
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:04:42 -0700
Greg Leblanc wrote:
>
> I need to add a couple of raw PCL commands to my print documents, in
> order to change the output tray on a big printer that I have. It seems
> that it would be easiest to set up 2 different queues, 1 for each output
> tray, and add something into the print filter for each of those that
> specifies the output tray, but I've been unable to find where I should
> add that. I'm using RH62, and ghostscript 5.5. Anybody want to give me
> a pointer or two?
> Greg
I am using the 2 print queue method on my PCL printer. I set them up
with printtool, and for the larger paper (11x17), I went into the "Input
Filter" section and added "-sPAPERSIZE=11x17" into the "Extra GS
options" box. The available sizes are mentioned in the ghostscript
documenation file Use.htm, the appendix "Paper sizes known to
Ghostscript" (at least in GS 6.0).
--
My real email is akamail.com@dclark (or something like that).
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David C.)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: scsi bus resets with aic7xxx
Date: 31 Aug 2000 16:51:34 -0400
vlado <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> ...
>
> The chances are more towards a bug/undocumented feature of the
> AHA2940UW controller and/or a related aic7xxx driver behaviour.
>
> Anyway, things and solutions of the sort of no_resets does not cure
> the problem of the occuring bus timeouts.
Strange.
I'm also using a 2940UW (with an IBM 9G UW drive - model DGHS09U). Once
I got the cables short enough, my problems went away. I'm using the
drive's on-board termination. My OS is RedHat 6.2, with the 2.2.16-3
kernel upgrade installed. It's installed in a Micron Millennaia Pro2
(Micronics W6Li "Lightning" motherboard (Rev A), dual Pentium Pros at
200MHz, 64M RAM - if any of this helps.)
Using your SCSISelect utility, make sure the card's termination is set
up to terminate both the high and low parts of the bus. Don't use
auto-termination - it sometimes guesses wrong.
Make sure all the other SCSISelect parameters look OK. Make sure the
card resets the SCSI bus at boot time. (This setting sometimes turns
itself off for no apparent reason on my system. I don't know why.)
Check that the other settings make sense.
Check your SCSI BIOS revision against the latest rev at Adaptec's site.
If you don't have the current release, try upgrading it. After doing
so, double-check all SCSISelect parameters, in case the upgrade changed
something.
-- David
------------------------------
From: Duane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Linksys LNE100TX weird behavior???
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:19:28 -0700
"Robert E. Blair" wrote:
>
> I have had a Linksys Etherfast PCI card in my system for a few years
> now. It always worked fine - the system is triboot (linux,NT,W95). I
> got a cable modem and out of paranoia upgraded the kernel to the latest
> version from Redhat (2.2.16-3). Everything is fine BUT the ethernet
> card basically went dead. The tulip driver loads fine, but there is no
> response to pings to a neighbor machine. The hardware still worked as
> verified by boot another OS.
>
> Here's the weird thing. In trying to solve the problem I discovered
> that if I ran ntop (the ethernet sniffer) the card suddenlly worked.
> Tipped off by that I tried loading the driver, initiating the network
> start and did a "/sbin/ifconfig eth0 -promisc" and sure enough the card
> works fine! It appears to be very reproducible. Before I put this in
> my network startup file, anyone have a similar experience? Anyone have
> a clue as to why this might be?
>
> Any hints would be appreciated.
I definitely noticed that RH 6.1 and 6.2 do not "start up" the card by
default. I originally bought a Linksys LNE100TX just to use with
software that required a network address for licensing, knowing that I
would eventually also use it for networking. But anytime I rebooted, I
had to do the old "ifconfig eth0" stuff before the licensing system
would see the card. However, once I installed DSL and the
Roaring-Penguin client, the card gets started by the penguin just fine.
Now that I look, on a second card I added and which just runs the SSH
deamon, I still have a manual ifconfig command in rc.local for the
second ethernet card just before runnning sshd. I don't remember whether
I did much testing to be sure it was needed, but apparently I thought so
at the time.
--
My real email is akamail.com@dclark (or something like that).
------------------------------
From: Duane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: HP CDWriter SCSI support
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:29:57 -0700
Brian Whiting wrote:
>
> I have an IDE HP 8210i CDWriter. In the past I enabled SCSI support
> successfully and XCDRoast detected the drive. I have since replaced my RH
> 6.1 installation with RH 6.2 and cannot remember the steps I took to enable
> the CDWriter to appear as a SCSI device.
>
> Can anyone help?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brian
Assuming you don't want to recompile the kernel, add a line to your
Linux boot section of lilo.conf similar to:
append="hdc=ide-scsi"
Run /sbin/lilo and reboot.
Then, with RH6.1, you might have used something like a line in
conf.modules similar to:
alias scsi_hostadapter ide-scsi
In RH 6.2 (which now calls the file modules.conf), that no longer
appears to work, and I have not found a combination that does. So
instead, I put into /etc/rc.d/rc.local:
modprobe ide-scsi
Works fine for me.
--
My real email is akamail.com@dclark (or something like that).
------------------------------
From: Chris Rankin <au.zipworld.com@{no.spam}rankinc>
Subject: Re: Zip100 Mount Problems - /dev/sda4 not a valid block device
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 08:29:27 +1100
"Justo M. Casablanca" wrote:
> > There's no IRQ mentioned here. Do you have an "irq=7" option for your
> > parport_pc module? I think you need a line like this in your
> > /etc/moduless.conf:
> >
> > options parport_pc irq=7 io=0x378
>
> Look closer. There's a line in the boot sequence that reads:
>
> "Aug 26 22:56:16 somehost kernel: parport0: detected irq 7; use procfs
> to enable interrupt-driven operation."
Thank you, I *did* see that line. I meant that there was no IRQ
mentioned in the line *above* it, and I think that there should have
been. Have you tried putting that options line into your modules.conf? I
think that you are currently using the parallel port driver in polling
mode, and it needs to be interrupt-driven.
Chris
------------------------------
From: "Kurt M. Alonso" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: low power linux devices
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 23:56:15 +0200
By the responses I have received, I gather that power consumption, in
general,
is not an issue to most. Somewhat surprising, but I guess energy prices in
the
US are not as high as high as they are in Europe.
Anywway, I have received received interesting pointers to linux-enabled PPC
based embedded computers. In fact, I think I will try a non-x86 architecture
for
my pet project. My question is, what non-x86 systems can run linux
acceptably well?
Pointers, links? I am aware of general porting efforts to other processor
architecture.
What I'm looking for is actual systems.
Kurt
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Plasma Brain)
Crossposted-To: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus
Subject: Installing Linux on ASUS A7V Motherboard
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 22:05:58 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I plan to install Linux (Stormix or Slackware) on the following
system. I fear I may hit a a hitch though as my primary drive is an
IBM ATA-100 on an ATA-100 controller. Other specs:
CPU: Duron 650
RAM: 256MB PC-133
Primary (Boot Hardrive): IBM 15GB ATA-100 on onboard ATA-100
controller. Currently boots NT4 and has all data on it
Seconday Drive: IGM 13GB ATA-66 on ATA-66 primary conroller.
>>>>>> - this is where I want to install linux. I planned on setting
a dual boot using the NT boot loader, and putting the linux
boot sector on my c:\ drive which has worked great on other
systems I have buillt, but I fear that Linux won't recognize
the HD on the ATA-100 controller.
How can I account for this during installation? What is the best
solution or method of installing linus on an ASUS A7V mobo?
Thanks in advance!
- Plasma Brain-
--
Get more here - http://fly.to/jotter
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: CD-ROM woes
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 22:14:38 GMT
Chuck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: That was really unnecessary.
Did it solve your problem?
--
Jeff Gentry [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"You're one of those condescending UNIX users! ...."
"Here's a nickel kid ... get yourself a real computer."
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Video acquisition
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 22:07:13 GMT
Is there some way to use a miroVideo DC30 or a Fast AV Master (or any
other card of this level) under Linux?
Thank you
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David C.)
Subject: Re: tape drives
Date: 31 Aug 2000 18:39:18 -0400
Randy Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> I agree that a SCSI drive is the way to go if you are looking for a
> high performance drive. If you will be using a lot of tapes, then a
> drive that uses 4mm or 8mm tapes will save you money in the long run
> as the tapes are much more cost effective. HP makes quality drives of
> this type.
4mm drives have the least expensive media, but the drives can cost quite
a bit.
Here's some numbers for comparison. I'm using
http://www.dirtcheapdrives.com/ as a price reference. All drives are
internal. I've chosen the least expensive brand of drive/media for each
kind of 4mm and Travan mechanism (There are other models and other
brands for all of these). All interfaces are SCSI. I've ordered them
by price.
4mm DAT (DDS, or DDS-1)
Uncompressed capacity: 2G on 90m tape, 1.3G on 60m tape
Media cost: $12 (for 90m) ($7 ea. in 10-packs)
4mm DAT (DDS-2) (Seagate) Travan TR-4 (Seagate)
Uncompressed capacity: 4G Uncompressed capacity: 4G
Drive cost: $400 Drive cost: $215
Media cost: $14 ($9 ea. in 10-packs) Media cost: $25 ($24 ea. in 10-packs)
(Can also use DDS-1 and DDS-2 media)
4mm DAT (DDS-3) (Seagate) Travan NS-20 (Seagate)
Uncompressed capacity: 12G Uncompressed capacity: 10G
Drive cost: $680 Drive cost: $280
Media cost: $27 ($20 ea. in 10-packs) Media cost: $47 ($41 ea. in 10-packs)
4mm DAT (DDS-4) (Sony)
Uncompressed capacity: 20G
Drive cost: $880
Media cost: $60 ($55 ea. in 10-packs)
So.......
Although a Travan-series drve costs less, the media costs more. With
the 4G drives and prices cited above, the break-even point is when you
buy 13 tapes:
DDS-2: $400 (drive) + $90 (10 tapes) + $42 (3 tapes) = $532
TR-4: $215 (drive) + $240 (10 tapes) + $75 (3 tapes) = $530
If we compare the next level up (DDS-3 vs. NS-20), the break-even point
is at:
DDS-3: $680 (drive) + $400 (20 tapes) = $1080
NS-20: $280 (drive) + $820 (20 tapes) = $1100
(Actually, the break-even point is a bit after 18 tapes, but then it
becomes cheaper to buy two 10-packs.)
What's more economial for you will depend on how much tape you expect to
use. I have gone through 13 tapes in the 4-5 years I've been using DAT
so far. I have not yet gone through the 20 tapes needed to make
the higher-capacity versions of DAT more affordable.
Of course, if you need higher capacities than 10G per tape, Travan is
right out anyway.
> If you are looking for high capacity, like 30GB or more DLT, then
> someone else will have to put in their 2 cents worth.
Things are a bit more confusing in the 8mm drive world. There are many
different lengths of tape, and many different recording mechanisms,
yielding different densities. (Capacities are again without
compression)
These are the "traditional" 8mm sizes:
A 15m tape may hold 150M, 300M or 600M
A 54m tape may hold 600M, 1.15G or 2.35G
A 112m tape may hold 1.25G, 2.5G or 5G
A 160m tape may hold 3.5G or 7G
Note that not all sizes work in all drives, and not all drives can read
or write all densities. You really have to do your homework in order to
make sure you know what you're getting.
(Source: http://www.exabyte.com/suppserv/faqs/tfaq17.html
and http://www.exabyte.com/suppserv/techsupp/8mm/media/in0033.html)
In addition, Exabyte and Sony each have developed their own
high-capacity versions of 8mm, which are incompatible with each other.
Exabyte's is called "Mammoth". Mammoth drives used media called "AME",
or "AME with SmartClean" (whatever the heck that is)
A 22m AME tape holds 2.5G or 6.25G
A 45m AME tape holds 5G or 12.5G
A 75m AME/sc tape holds 25G
A 125m AME tape holds 14G or 37.5G
A 150m AME/sc tape holds 50G
A 170m AME tape holds 20G or 56.25G
A 225m AME/sc tape holds 75G
Again, not all AME tapes work in all Mammoth drives, and not all drives
support the same densities.
Mammoth drives can read, but not write traditional 8mm tapes.
Traditional 8mm drives can not use AME tapes at all.
(Source: http://www.exabyte.com/suppserv/faqs/tfaq17.html
and http://www.exabyte.com/suppserv/techsupp/8mm/media/in0033.html)
Sony's high-capacity 8mm is called "AIT". AIT tapes come in two
lengths, and have two different compositions (supporting two different
densities):
An AIT-1 tape (170m) holds 25G
An AIT-1 tape (230m) holds 35G
An AIT-2 tape (170m) holds 36G
An AIT-2 tape (230m) holds 50G
AIT tapes include a RAM chip that software can write to. Software is
expected to write directory information to this chip, to be able to
quickly locate and retrieve individual files witout needing to read the
whole tape or keep an index on a hard drive.
AIT drives can not read or write AME tapes or traditional 8mm tapes.
AIT tapes are not compatible wtih other 8mm drives.
(Source:
http://www.world.sony.com/Electronics/DataMedia/products/AIT/AIT_specs.gif)
All 8mm drives are expensive, although you can sometimes find an old
traditional (112m tape, 2.5G capacity) drive at a flea market for pretty
cheap.
DLT drives have been around for a while. There are three types of media
currently available. Each supports a variety of densities. A higher-
density drive should be able to read and write a tape at the lower
densities as well, for backward compatibility:
A DLT-III tape (365m) hold 2.6G or 10G
A DLT-IIIxt tape (557m) holds 15G
A DLT-IV tape (557m) holds 20G, 35G or 40G
DLT drives are popular, fast, reliable, and expensive.
There are a few other new kinds of tape drives that were recently
released as well (including one very affordable 25G drive from
OnStream). I don't know much about these drives, however. Do your
homework before getting any of these.
If you need to back up ridiculous amounts of data, you can also get
autoloader drives for almost every format made. These let you load
between 5 and dozens of tapes. When appropriate software is installed,
the drive will automatically swap tapes as needed, so you can do an
unattended backup that's larger than a single tape's capacity.
-- David
------------------------------
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