[plug] Hardware compatibility - Russell

[Russell Hobman]

Goodaye James, sorry I have taken so long to get back to you.

what I was talking about with the generic IDE drivers was that I have never
used the driver disk that come with the CDRW. I am quite new to Linux myself
as I have been using Fortran/basic/dos/windows since the mid 80's. a lot of
the Linux processes I am still learning, but I'll try to advise you as best
as I can. 

when I have installed CDRW on windows machine (98se/2000) it installs with a
windows certified driver (from the windows installation disk). when I
installed in mandrake 8 I used HardDrake icon from KDE gui. start
panel>configuration/system group. harddrake will detect hardware, just
select device from list and install with the run configuration tool button.
the CDRW will have to be mounted as with other drives when Linux loads, I
use the Lilo boot loader, or you can mount manually from command line as SU.

there is an  informative article in Linux gazette : "cd-writing with an
atapi CDR mini-howto". it is interesting to note that these IDE drives use
scsi emulation in Linux. something I found over at the mandrake-Linux site
that may be helpful, is as follows.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--

You have to tell the kernel, that your CD-writer is a SCSI-device (they all
are !).
Accordingly, you have to add a statement to your "/etc/lilo.conf" 

file, for example :

image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label=Linux
	root=/dev/hda2
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append=" hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi devfs=mount "
	vga=791
	read-only

the important line here being : append= "hdc=ide-scsi 
hdd=ide-scsi
devfs=mount".
As you can see, there is two CD-drives (hdc and hdd), both acting as
SCSI-devices.
To clarify things :
Your hard drive (C in windows-lingo) is probably hda ("master" on first
IDE-bus)
Your "slave" on the same IDE-bus is hdb (that one is empty on my system, as
you can see)
Your "master" on the second IDE-bus is hdc (I use this for my first CD-ROM)
Your "slave" on the second IDE-bus is hdd (I use this for my CD-Writer).

Edit your "etc/lilo.conf" (as root), and save it. That done you MUST
remember to issue the command : "lilo"  (as root and without the ""-marks).
Then reboot, and everything should be fine.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
for part 2 of your email, when I have looked for Linux drivers for my
hardware I have found "tar" files for Redhat/Debian/SuSe but not for
mandrake 8 that I use. I was informed by the hardware manufacturer that a
mandrake driver was not necessary as my harddrake would recognise and
configure the hardware. so far this has been the case. I have not opened the
driver.tar file to find out. what I assume you do if you have "tar" files is
that you "unzip" them and run the executable. someone might like to correct
me if I'm wrong here, thankyou.

as far as loading new device, I just use harddrake to configure and edit
Lilo if I have to. there is a lot of helpful howtos on the Linux
documentation project website ... http://linuxdoc.org  I hope this helps,
regards, Russell.

*************************************************************************
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	James Elliott [SMTP:James.Elliott at wn.com.au]
> Sent:	Monday, May 13, 2002 4:23 PM
> To:	plug at plug.linux.org.au
> Subject:	Re: [plug] Hardware compatibility - Russell
> 
> Hi Russell.
> 
> In your e-mail to Russell you said (among other things):
> 
> >"I have found that most cdrw's use the generic ide drivers. my mandrake
> 8+
> has no problem with the acer cdrw I use."
> 
> This prompts a couple of questions from me, as a new Linux user.
> 
> 1.  If you have a device which comes with a driver diskette or CD, does it
> have to be in a special format to be able to use it with Linux (as
> distinct
> from Windows)?
> 
> 2.  If you have a Linux driver for a device - how do you load it?
> 
> With Windows you usually do something like:
> 1.  attached the device and make sure it is on
> 2.  turn on the computer and Windows finds the device while booting up
> 3.  inert the driver disk when it is asked for
> and Bob's your uncle!
> 
> How do you connect new devices and load their drivers using Linux?
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> James Elliott
> 
>