devfs and zip drive entry

[Kibab]

I can't seem to find my zip drive entry with devfs. It's on the second controller as a slave so it's normally listed as /dev/hdd. Then I usually use /dev/hdd4 to mount vfat partitions and /dev/hdd1 for linux native partitions.

However, I can't figure out where it should be.

[MBCook]

That's what it's going to say because there are no partitions there. What happens when you stick a disk in the drive? Do partitions appear under that dev directory? If that didn't work, I would try booting with a disk in the drive just to see if it gets recignised with partitons that way.
_________________
-- Michael

Read an intelligent book like "The New Thought Police" or "The War Against Boys", and learn the TRUTH.

[Kibab]

Well, assuming I know where the zip drive is going to show up, /dev/ide/host0/bus1/target1/lun0/*, then nothing shows up when I insert a zipdisk.

I presume it will show up when I boot with a zipdisk in the drive and will try it this afternoon to see for sure.

--Kibab

[TomorrowPlusX]

I can't remember which thread I read this on, but it seems the atapi floppy drivers haven't been made devfs friendly yet.

I could be wrong, and would happily be wrong -- because my thinkpad's beautiful superdrive zip 250 (which works fine under normal dev setups) is collecting dust :(

[Kibab]

Hmm.... that's strange if it is the case. It is almost no more work to make a driver use devfs versus to not use devfs. Generally you just call devfs_register_{blk,chr}dev(...) instead of register_{blk,chr}dev(...). Although, it might be a little more difficult because of the removable aspect.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

--Kibab

[MBCook]

I'll check into that, but in the mean time, if you tell the kernel to use the ide-scsi driver for that drive (let's say it's hdd, then at bootup add "hdd=ide-scsi" to the kernel parameters) and it should work.
_________________
-- Michael

Read an intelligent book like "The New Thought Police" or "The War Against Boys", and learn the TRUTH.

[MBCook]

You're right, it's not dev-fs aware. Looks like I found me a kernel project.
_________________
-- Michael

Read an intelligent book like "The New Thought Police" or "The War Against Boys", and learn the TRUTH.

[MBCook]

You're right, it's not dev-fs aware. Looks like I found me a kernel project.
_________________
-- Michael

Read an intelligent book like "The New Thought Police" or "The War Against Boys", and learn the TRUTH.

[Kibab]

I'll try it as a scsi-drive. That will be an easy workaround if that is the case.

If you are going to work on the zip driver as a kernel project, let me know how it goes or if you need a hand. I would do it myself if I weren't already busy with many other projects.

--Kibab

[Kibab]

Oh... I almost forgot, I have a friend who uses devfs with his zip drive with the ide drivers and it works fine. His drive shows up as hdf4. He is using a Redhat/Mandrake kernel, I don't remember which, so it may have been patched with something to provide that support, but I do know that it's possible. Anyone else have their zip drive working under devfs?

--Kibab

[MBCook]

God i'm an idiot. I've been looking at the code. the ide-floppy doesn't ever touch devfs, because the main ide driver does this for it. This means that it IS devfs aware. So much for a kernel project . It should work, I'll go test mine. BTW, all zip disks (that aren't formatted differently by users) store data on partition 4, because that's the default partition number for macs for some odd reason. BRB, running downstairs to check things.

-- RUNS --

-- LOOKS --

-- TESTS --

-- RUNS --

Well, while I know the kernel knows it's there, it doesn't appear in /dev. Oh well. Sorry 'bout the double post too. Did you every try booting with a disk in the drive?
_________________
-- Michael

Read an intelligent book like "The New Thought Police" or "The War Against Boys", and learn the TRUTH.

[MBCook]

I'm an idiot and should stop posting.

Now that that's out of the way, check it out. I went googling for the ide-floppy guy and found his page on it. It says that DevFS support isn't there because it will require touching some kernel subsystems. But if you want to give it a try, there are two patches you must apply (in order):

The first
And the second

His page says that they apply succesfully to .14 and .16, but doesn't say anything about anything newer. I guess you'll have to use scsi emulation (ide-scsi). Oh well.
_________________
-- Michael

Read an intelligent book like "The New Thought Police" or "The War Against Boys", and learn the TRUTH.

[smtanner]

I got my zip drive working by using scsi emulation. When I insert a zip disk, /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part4 magically appears. Use this device in fstab and everything works. The link /dev/sda4 which should point to the above part4 is not created unless I have the zip disk in during boot but it is not needed anyway.

[wilbertnl]

I added the following lines to my /etc/devfs.conf.

# Create /dev/discs/hde
LOOKUP ^hde$ CFUNCTION GLOBAL mksymlink discs/disc1/disc hde
REGISTER ^ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/zip$ CFUNCTION GLOBAL mksymlink $devname hde
UNREGISTER ^ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/zip$ CFUNCTION GLOBAL unlink $devname hde

# Create /dev/discs/hde1
LOOKUP ^hde1$ CFUNCTION GLOBAL mksymlink ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 hde1
REGISTER ^ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/part1$ CFUNCTION GLOBAL mksymlink $devname hde1
UNREGISTER ^ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/part1$ CFUNCTION GLOBAL unlink $devname hde1

# Create /dev/discs/hde4
LOOKUP ^hde4$ CFUNCTION GLOBAL mksymlink ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/part4 hde4
REGISTER ^ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/part4$ CFUNCTION GLOBAL mksymlink $devname hde4
UNREGISTER ^ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/part4$ CFUNCTION GLOBAL unlink $devname hde4
_________________
Wilbert van Bakel
Strive for excellence, not perfection