In <000b01bececc$a99950c0$c6408cd4@gtjh> GERALD HOOPER ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> Hi Larry
> I am not an expert in the internal of kernel device drivers but I need to contact
>someone who is and who can help me.
Hardly needed. I honestly can not see problem with kernel device drivers in you
report yet. MUCH MORE like just a bunch of "pilot errors". /dev/lp0 (NOT /dev/lp1
anymore!) is not recognized since you do not have proper driver installed/tuned,
vfat is not supported since you can not load vfat.o without fat.o, etc.
Of course there are CAN BE driver problems -- it's really strange that partition
check does not work for LS-120... It should...
> The help desk staff at RedHat do not seem to have the necessary levels of expertise
>to sort out what is a very real problem with the linux kernels and in particular the
>differences between 2.0.36-0.7 (Linux 5.2) and 2.2.5-15 (Linux 6.0).
Never tried to contact with them :-) From conversation looks like they are just
not trained enough to read someone's brain...
> My problem is that the kernels do not seem to be upwardly compatible.
They are not. It's well-known truth. Take a look on
http://www.kernelnotes.org/change22.html , for example :-)
> I have a system which uses a modern BX board with built in AIC 7895 scsi controllers
>on which I have three scci 4.3 scci disks mounted. I also have an LS120 drive with a
>standard floppy. The reason for my upgrading from 5.2 to 6.0 was because of timeout
>problems on the scci bus where the 2.0.36 kernel keeps resetting after a timeout. The
>6.0 system appears to be better in this respect but using the 2.2.5-15 kernel gives
>rise to more serious problems namely that the parallel port does not appear to have
>been configured in the kernel and I cannot gain access to my LS120 drive because it
>is not prperly detected by the system.
It should not be configured in kernel. You must make approriate changes
in /etc/conf.modules. LS-120 problem is more interesting, though.
Still it's not clear if it's kernel problem or just local configuration problem.
> The essential fault appears to lie in the specification of the /proc/devices
>directory which is a virtual file system which forms part of the kernel.
Thnx for explanation about /proc :-)
> If you examine this directory on both the 2.0.36-07 (Linux Version 5.2) and 2.2.5-15
>(Linux Version 6.0) kernels you will see that they are very different and that the
>key 'lp' item is missing from the 2.2.5-15 kernel.
And it's correct. lp driver is not loaded right now -- why it should be in
/proc/devices ? When it will be needed and will be autoloaded you'll see
key 'lp' there.
> The label for the 'lp' item is 6 which I believe to be the major port number in the
>'major minor' number port identifier sequence.
Huh. What are that ports you are talking about ? 6 in just major number for
/dev/lp* special files if you mean this...
> The way in which the /proc directory is used by the rest of the system is critical
>but I have yet to find any documentation on this.
Hmm. You can live well without /proc at all. Some utilities (like ps) will not
work then, of course but to said that it's "critical" is little overboard IMO.
> To put matters right you would need to rebuild the kernel but Redhat do not provide
>the means to do this or of copies of the make files from which the kernels were
>originally constructed, so that their construction can be verified against their
>specification.
Huh. HEAVY AND UNFAIR INSULT. Full build procedure including all needed source
files, configuration files and so on must be in kernel*.src.rpm on CD with
sources... And yes, in such situations usually better to cook up new kernel,
of course.
> Doing a cat on the /proc/devices virtual directory for kernel 2.2.5-15
> gave the following results
> Character devices: Block devices:
> 1 mem 1 ramdisk
> 2 pty 2 fd
> 3 ttyp 3 ide0
> 4 ttyS 8 sd
> 5 cua 9 md
> 7 vcs 22 ide1
> 10 misc
> 29 fb
> 36 netlink
> 128 ptm
> 136 pts
> The corresponding values for the 2.0.36-07 kernel were
> Character devices: Block devices:
> 1 mem 1 ramdisk
> 2 pty 2 fd
> 3 ttyp 3 ide0
> 4 ttyp 8 sd
> 5 cua 9 md
> 6 lp 22 ide1
> 7 vcs
> 10 misc
> While the Block devices are the same the Character Devices differ significantly
As is should be :-) Kernel 2.0 and 2.2 are quite different beasts.
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