Linux-Hardware Digest #397, Volume #14 Sat, 24 Feb 01 23:13:07 EST
Contents:
Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ? ("Joseph T. Adams")
max. internal modems support in Linux? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: ATI Rage Fury (Domenic Beneventi)
Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ? (Norman D. Megill)
Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ? ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ? ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: IRQ conflict???? (Gary I Kahn)
Linux on HP 3250 Pavillion Laptop (Alan Sondheim)
Re: IRQ conflict???? (Dances With Crows)
Re: Mount CDRW trouble (holcomb)
Re: CDRW mounting (holcomb)
Writing a USB device driver ("bz")
Re: max. internal modems support in Linux? (Dances With Crows)
Re: Writing a USB device driver (Drew Roedersheimer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
Date: 25 Feb 2001 01:17:40 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy peter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
The canonical solution for this type of application is called "LAMP"
(Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). You write simple HTML interfaces in
PHP with scripting code to interact with the database. Any Web
browser (on Linux or Win) can act as the client.
However, I agree with those who've pointed out that PostgreSQL is a
more powerful database engine and may be more suited for an inventory
and tracking application as opposed to MySQL.
These tools are fairly easy to learn.
Simple reporting can be done using PHP's ability to generate graphics
and PDFs on the fly. You'll need to make sure these options are
compiled in, and you'll need some readily and freely available
libraries in order to do that.
Depending on the size and importance of the application, you also may
want to investigate learning some of the technologies for building
n-tier applications. These would include application server
environments such as Enhydra, Zope, or Zend (based on Java, Python,
and PHP respectively). They are harder to learn than a simple HTML
scripting environment, but can be used to build more powerful,
scalable and robust apps as well.
The reason I don't necessarily recommend a prepackaged application is
that those invariably need to be customized to your needs anyway,
which is expensive, and those types of systems may be less flexible as
your needs grow and change than would be a system designed and built
to your own specifications.
Joe
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: max. internal modems support in Linux?
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 23:28:18 +0800
Hi,
Just curious, how many number of mixing internal ISA & PCI hardware
modems Linux kernel 2.2 & 2.4 can support? As I know PCI modems can use
i/o ports other than 3f8, 2f8, 3e8, 2e8, can we use more than 4 modems
when mixing ISA & PCI modems?
Thanks for your help! Pls reply to my e-mail if possible!
Vincent
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: be.comp.os.linux,nl.comp.os.linux,alt.os.linux
From: Domenic Beneventi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ATI Rage Fury
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 20:52:27 -0500
On Thu, 22 Feb 2001, Studenten FR wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm having trouble getting a
>
> ATI Rage Fury Pro/Xpert 2000 Pro
>
> videocard up and running on a linux (RH6.0) system of a friend of mine.
> I think it's a rather new videocard, so it is highly likely that it's
> not supported yet by XFree86. Does anyone have any suggestions or does
> anyone know of a Xserver for this card ???
>
> Thanks,
>
> bino
>
I have the same card. Make sure you are running xfree4 not xfree 3.36,
which does not support the card...
dom
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Norman D. Megill)
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 02:11:43 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
peter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
Yes, Linux could be used as the base platform. But be very careful of
what you are getting into here - at this point I think you have a
simplistic view.. A database, mentioned elsewhere in this thread, is
barely the starting point. Even an "inventory control system" only
touches the surface of what you have to do.
In a manufacturing and production environment you should be familiar
with terms such as bills of material, routing, revision control,
supersession maintenance, material/labor tracking, serial/lot
assignment, material reserve/issue, picking lists, workcenter gates and
backflushing, cost rollups, etc. Not to mention the financial tracking
and general ledger entries that must take place at numerous points.
This is just for "production control". The next level, which I don't
even get into here, is MRP or "manufacturing resource planning", which
ties into a production control system.
A person qualified to set up such a system is normally a CPIM (Certified
in Production and Inventory Management) with a related master's degree.
While I fully support the Open Source movement, there is currently no
GPL'ed package anything anywhere near what you will need that is
currently available, and a serious manufacturing operation is best off
shelling out tens to hundreds of thousand dollars to purchase a
commercial package (peanuts compared to the millions setting up the
factory). Attempting to do it on your own from scratch is, quite
frankly, a little foolhardy (but you're welcome to try!).
By the way it is standard practice for manufacturing software providers
to provide source code for complete flexibility in customizing it to
specific needs, and this is demanded by the users. This is not GPLed
code though, as the manufacturing software provider owns and enforces
the copyright on its base code. To my knowledge there has never been a
source code "theft" problem with this, since the the users feel they are
really paying for a service (maintenance and support), and in any case
the customization costs often dwarf the cost of the original package.
The customization costs can be minimal for a small operation willing to
live with the limitations of a base system, and ranges up to several
million dollars for a large factory with all kinds of special needs.
Virtually all of the serious manufacturing systems run on various
flavors of Unix, including Linux. They will also run under Windows 2K
in principle, but I'm not aware of a large manufacturing operation using
NT or 2K for this. Actually most of them use and prefer "dumb terminal"
telnet-type interfaces to the Unix server, since for routine
manufacturing operations a character screen is far more efficient for
entering bar-code data with a couple of keystrokes than moving a mouse
around.
To get a feel, here is a list of the various menu functions that should
be available in an actual Production Control system. In terms of
programming, it typically consists of hundreds of thousands of lines of
4GL code, which sits on top of and interacts with (i.e. calls functions
from) a million or so lines of 4GL code for the underlying inventory,
order processing/accounts receivable, purchasing/accounts payable, and
general ledger software in a sophisticated ERP (enterprise resource
planning) system. Without endorsing a specific vendor, an actual
example is Foresight Software's Production Planning module. To get a
perspective, this is roughly the "Production Planning" item in the
subfigure labeled "Manufacturing" on
http://www.foresight-esp.com/scripts/wsisa.dll/productsweb/prodindex.r .
Calendar Maintenance
Employee Maintenance
Workweek/Holiday Maintenance
Final Assembly WO for Sales Order
Work Order Entry
WO Entry - Materials Screen
WO Entry - Labor (Routing) Screen
WO Entry - WO Printing Screen
WO Entry - Serial/Lot Assignment
On-Screen Component Check
Stock Adjustment
WO Scheduling
WO Reserve/Pick List Printing
WO Printing
Issue Materials to WO
WIP Transaction Inquiry
WIP Transaction Report
Time Sheet Entry
WO Completion Entry
Close Work Order
Mass WO Scheduling
Backflush Entry
Close Backflush Work Order
Batch Backflush Maintenance
Batch Backflush List
Batch Backflush Execution
WO Header Serialized Item Inquiry
WO Header Inquiry
WO Completion Total Inquiry
WO Materials Inquiry
WO Labor Inquiry
Time Sheet Inquiry
Employee Inquiry
Employee Rate Inquiry
Backflush Summary by Item Inquiry
Backflush Detail by Item Inquiry
Final Assembly Backflush Inquiry
Work Order Orphan Inquiry
P/R - G/L Distribution by Period, Item, WO, Work Center, Job
WO/BackFlush Detail Report
Cost Variance Report
Materials Variance Analysis
WO Aging Report By Item
Backflush Status Report
Work Order & PO Requisition Report
Work Order Orphan Report
Final Assembly Status Report
Weekly Efficiency Report
Monthly Efficiency Report
P/R - G/L Distribution Report
P/R Inventory Transaction Journal
Closed WO Purge
Time Sheet Purge
Monthly Efficiency Purge
P/R Increment Year/Period
Backflush Transaction Purge
P/R - G/L Interface
P/R Distribution Purge
WIP Transaction Purge
Good luck!
--Norm
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 20:21:57 -0600
I think he was looking for already designed and written systems rather than
writing one himself.
"Jan Francsi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Hello!
>
> I think, you need some kind of database.
> Read about sql and relational Databases.
> As a server you can use a Linux box with mysql.
>
> On the client side, you can create
> - software in C with qt2 lib's for graphical GUI
> - html with java or php to make the Database accesable in any Browser.
> In that case you will need the Apache www server on your server.
>
> For system-service use SSH, Telnet and webmin, a verry nice www
> (intranet) aplication.
>
> I hope, this helps.
>
> greatings, Jan
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 20:27:24 -0600
What you want is something called an MRP or ERP. This stands for
"Manufacturing Resource Planning" or "Enterprise Resource Planning". Such
systems track inventory (both raw materials and end product), Bill of
Materials, Work Orders, Etc..
Some of them include Customer account tracking (which cusomter received
which product based on work order, etc.), Order management, RMA (Return
Material Authorization), Accounting, ordering and prediction of raw
materials, etc..
I can't answer your question about whether Linux would work for you, But I
thought you should at least know the terms used for the software you're
looking for.
"peter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
>
> What I'm trying to do, is design a factory inventory system. To keep
> cost down I want to use Linux. The model I'm using, is a furniture
> factory. I want to design a system that will allow the factory to
> keep track of their "work in progress" and finished goods. I'm
> guessing that this will be a little more complicated than your
> average inventory system?
>
> Of course the workers would have to access the system to enter data,
> etc, so the user interfaces can't be too complicated (GUI?).
>
> SOFTWARE
>
> Is there any "open source" software that can help me with the
> inventory and tracking ? or
>
> Would I have to write a program from scratch or could I modify some
> existing software ? or
>
> Would it make more sense to just buy the software (for linux) ?
>
> HARDWARE
>
> This is an easy (well easier) one for me, first I would make sure the
> hardware (I'm buying) is linux compatible. I would go out and buy B/W
> 9" monitors, those cool small cases (with the 810e chipset, if the
> 810e is linux compatible), and celeron cpus, etc. I would pick up
> some retractable keyboard and mouse holders and set up several rack
> mount style data centers throughout the factory (I would love to set
> this up!!!)
> On the server side, things get a little tricky, maybe (just maybe) tie
> into a win 2000 server (A lot depends on what existing system they
> already have, and we all know that many of the existing systems will
> be win98, etc). I guess the management would need to access the data
> entered by the factory workers to check progress, productivity, etc.
> A linux server could be used and we could somehow give the management
> access to this server though their existing win boxes (secure CRT ?).
> Or we could design a simple way to access and read the data in linux
> (write a small reporting program or use some simple database program)
> and also have the forms printed automatically at the end of the day.
>
> SUPPORT
>
> Depending on the size of the factory, in-house linux/windows support
> would be smart, But if it's a small company, then they could call on
> the systems/software provider (me) for support. From what I read
> about linux, if I design the system right, there won't be to many
> problems. I would probably set up a service contract where I would
> come in every month and check things out.
>
> SECURITY
>
> This system would not be accessible from the outside, This is a lone
> factory (pretty rare in today's world, but let's keep things simple :)
> Managers would have internet access, so normal virus protection, and
> other precautions would be in place.
>
> FORGET LINUX
>
> If, for some strange reason it would be better to do this on some
> other platform, like freeBSD, or windows 2000, please tell me. Let's
> assume that the factory is a midsize factory (40-60 factory workers,
> 10-12 manager/sales/etc, and that they will need about 10 data entry
> terminals, and every manager already has a windows 98 box.
>
> NOTE
>
> I know I've left out a lot a details, I've never worked in a factory
> and I'm trying to understand how this can all work together. I think
> if we let are imaginations loose we can all have some fun with this;
> and a lot of the newbies to Linux and IT can learn a little.
>
>
------------------------------
From: Gary I Kahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: IRQ conflict????
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 22:03:08 -0500
John Christian Engelsen wrote:
> I've got an IRQ conflict with my ISDN card and soundcard both USES IRQ9
> and both are PCI...
> How can I solve this problem..
>
> ISDN location 2 bus0, device 9, function 0 IRQ 9
> es1371 location 3 bus0, device 10, function 0 IRQ 9
>
I had a similar problem on my machine--my modem, sound card, and the USB
port all share IRQ 9. I didn't find a way to force any of them off of IRQ
9, but I did find out that it wasn't a problem after I updated the serial
driver that comes with the linux kernel. If an ISDN card is a kind of
serial card, you might want to look into that. If you look in the comments
in the driver files, you'll find that the driver included in 2.4.x
addresses PCI IRQ problems. The driver included in kernel 2.2.17 is not as
up-to-date.
The serial driver can be downloaded all by itself. I found it on
freshmeat.net. I think that the changes needed went in with v5.02 or 5.03,
while the driver in kernel 2.2.17 was v4.93, or something like that.
I got the information from someone in this newsgroup. "Nader", I think. I
tried to email back to him to thank him, but the email address was a fake.
Gary
------------------------------
From: Alan Sondheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Linux on HP 3250 Pavillion Laptop
Date: 25 Feb 2001 03:24:26 GMT
Has anyone installed any version of linux on the HP 3250? I would really
like to do this; I've installed numerous times on desktops but never on a
laptop -
any suggestions, stories, comments, welcome, and thanks -
Alan Sondheim, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Internet Text at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
Partial at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Trace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
CDROM of collected work 1994-2000/1 available: write [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dances With Crows)
Subject: Re: IRQ conflict????
Date: 25 Feb 2001 03:27:58 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 01:30:18 +0100, John Christian Engelsen staggered
into the Black Sun and said:
>I've got an IRQ conflict with my ISDN card and soundcard both USES IRQ9
>and both are PCI... How can I solve this problem..
PCI cards can share interrupts. This shouldn't be a problem. Have you
tried using both at once? Do so if you haven't. I've had an es1371 and
a 3c590 sharing IRQ 11 for a while now in my main machine--no problems
to report.
>ISDN location 2 bus0, device 9, function 0 IRQ 9
>es1371 location 3 bus0, device 10, function 0 IRQ 9
>Can I set this up in te BIOS ???? In such case am I looking for the
>location number ???
This depends on the BIOS in your machine. My ABIT-KT7 has an option
where you can manually set the IRQ for each PCI slot, but your mainboard
may not have such an option. The first thing to do is to enter the BIOS
setup program and set "PnP OS" to "NO". The second thing to do is to
move one of the cards to a different PCI slot, as many boards key the
IRQ a PCI card uses to the slot that it's in.
--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin / Workin' in a code mine, hittin' Ctrl-Alt
http://www.brainbench.com / Workin' in a code mine, whoops!
=============================/ I hit a seg fault....
------------------------------
From: holcomb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mount CDRW trouble
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 03:30:02 -0000
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I added the symbolic link just as you stated. I can now listen to audio
CDs. I still have to mount data CDs manually, but that works ok too. I am
not sure what needs to be done to auto mount the device at boot time
without needing a CD in the drive. The documentation mentions that the
latest kernels offer this. My old CD reader worked this way. I am using
Mandrake 7.2 which has a pretty recent kernel. Still, I am quite happy to
be able to hear audio and read data anyway. Thanks again. JH
Matthew Paterson wrote:
>
> Have a look at your /etc/fstab file, if this points to /dev/cdrom, then
create
> a link from /dev/scd* to /dev/cdrom (you will have to rm -f /dev/cdrom
first)
> then all should be cool, or read the Cd-Writing HOWTO
> (/usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs/Cd-Writing-HOWTO)
>
> Matt
>
> holcomb wrote:
>
> > I bought a Sony CDRW drive that is detected on boot. With my old CD
drive
> > I could read data or play audio cds with no trouble and no need to
mount.
> > Now with my new CDRW the drive does not mount at boot. I can mount it
> > manually using ISO9660 file type and read data CDs. How do I mount the
> > CDRW to read audio CDs? How can I auto mount at boot time so that
audio
> > and data CDS can both be read? Thank you for your help. Jh
> >
> > --
> > Posted via CNET Help.com
> > http://www.help.com/
>
--
Posted via CNET Help.com
http://www.help.com/
------------------------------
From: holcomb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CDRW mounting
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 03:30:05 -0000
During installation, should I have answered yes when asked if I have any
SCSI devices? I was wondering since Linux treats my CDRW as a SCSI device.
I was able to create a symbolic link that allows me to hear audio cds
ln -s /dev/scd0 /dev/cdrom. JH
joseph Philip wrote:
>
>
> To listen to audo cd's there shoud be a wire going from the analog-out of
> the cdrw to the sound card's analog in.
>
> About mounting:
> chances are that the old cdrom was mounted as a secondary slace. most new
> cdrw's come jumpered as masters. You can access it directly through the
> ide interface, if you do not have scsi emulation enabled.
>
> What was that??
> Ok, Here goes: To do cd burning , the cdrecord software talks to it as if
> it is a scsi device. For this to work, you need the scsi emulation to
> be available in the kernel, and the cd to be accessed through the
> ide-scsi module. Further, the ide-cdrom module should be told to ignore
> the cdrw .
> There is a cdwriting howto that explains all these things, in addition to
> using a lone ide cdrw on a computer.
>
> hth
>
>
>
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "holcomb"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > I have a new Sony CDRW drive. My old CD drive used to be automatically
> > mounted at boot time in Mandrake 7.2. I was able to read data CDs or
> > listen to audio CDs with no problems. My new CDRW is not mounted at
> > boot. I can mount it manually using iso9660 to read data disks. I
> > still cannot listen to audio CDs. How do I mount my CDRW to listen to
> > audio CDs? Why do I have to mount and unmount CDs individually? Is
> > there a way to auto mount my CDRW at boot time and freely listen to
> > audio CDs or read data CDs without manually mounting and remounting
the
> > drive? Thank you for your help. JH
> >
> > --
> > Posted via CNET Help.com http://www.help.com/
--
Posted via CNET Help.com
http://www.help.com/
------------------------------
From: "bz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Writing a USB device driver
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 03:32:37 GMT
I want to write a device driver for a USB device of mine and was just
wondering some good resources to get my feet wet with. I saw the LDP guide
to kernel modules, but wanted to know if there were any other resources out
there. Thanks.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dances With Crows)
Subject: Re: max. internal modems support in Linux?
Date: 25 Feb 2001 03:52:44 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sat, 24 Feb 2001 23:28:18 +0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] staggered into the
Black Sun and said:
>Just curious, how many number of mixing internal ISA & PCI hardware
>modems Linux kernel 2.2 & 2.4 can support? As I know PCI modems can use
>i/o ports other than 3f8, 2f8, 3e8, 2e8, can we use more than 4 modems
>when mixing ISA & PCI modems?
If you're thinking about using more than a couple of modems (for a
dial-in server or something similar), it is in your best interests to
get a multiport serial card and any number of external modems.
Multiport serial cards come in a number of flavors, and most if not all
are supported by Linux. You can even have multiple multiport serial
cards... I think that a reasonable maximum is 128 external modems
hanging off one box, but you might be able to push that.
If the PCI cards are Real Modems, you should be able to use them
successfully. I don't know when the headaches with "setserial" and IRQ
conflicts and such would cause a problem, but modems generate a lot of
interrupts, and having more than one modem on the same IRQ would
probably cause a performance drop. This would mean about 6 modems on
one PC-architecture machine.... Multiport serial cards solve this
problem by having dedicated I/O circuits and larger buffers for each
virtual UART.
>Thanks for your help! Pls reply to my e-mail if possible!
"Post here, read here" is the time-honored Usenet rule. If you don't
have time to follow up on your own posts, why should we bother
responding to them?
--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin / Workin' in a code mine, hittin' Ctrl-Alt
http://www.brainbench.com / Workin' in a code mine, whoops!
=============================/ I hit a seg fault....
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Drew Roedersheimer)
Subject: Re: Writing a USB device driver
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 03:55:51 GMT
On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 03:32:37 GMT, bz wrote:
>I want to write a device driver for a USB device of mine and was just
>wondering some good resources to get my feet wet with. I saw the LDP guide
>to kernel modules, but wanted to know if there were any other resources out
>there. Thanks.
>
>
>
I'm certainly not an expert on this, (and I would like to do the same for
one of my devices so some answers to this post will interest me) but I would
think one of the best resources would be to check out some of the code
for a device similar to the one you would like to write the driver for. Much
of the code should be the same, so reinventing the wheel, per se, would be
silly IMHO.
my (probably blatantly) obvious $0.02
-DR
--
Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.
------------------------------
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