John Kimberly wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I just installed Redhat 6.0 on a system with an internal floppy based HP
> Colorado T3000 Tape drive. The system detected the drive and installed
> the 3.02d version of ftape. I have now done everything except sacrifice
> a goat to it, but it still won't work. I have read something about
> loading the "unsupported" version of ftape. I have also tried that, but
> couldn't get it to compile. I tried to modify the MCONFIG file and
> hacking around with it because of the missing /usr/src/linux/.config
> file.
>
> Has anybody done this successfully and can provide a cookbook for
> installing this.
>
> Thanks in Advance,
>
> John
I have a 1.7 GByte Conner dinky-tape and their CTC-2Mb floppy controller
just for it.
But I also run Red Hat Linux 6.0. Here is what I did, to the best of my
recollection:
Download the "unstable" versions of the ftape suite and the ftape-tools.
These can be found at URL:
http://www.math1.rwth-aachen.de/~heine/ftape/development.html
To compile them you need /usr/src/linux/.config. To get that, get the
source for Linux from your CD-ROM or download the latest source that
matches the kernel you are running. The distributed version was 2.2.5-15
(IIRC) and the version I am running is 2.2.5-22 (also IIRC). I downloaded
the RPM's for those, since I have not found it necessary to actually
rebuild the kernel.
I then went to /usr/src/linux and did the make xconfig (I think it is) step
and made changes ONLY in the part related to floppy tape, giving the
correct answers there. I told it to save the results and it did (to
.config). I did not bother to build or install the kernel.
Since the .config is there, I do not believe the build of ftape will even
look at MCONFIG, but you can set it up the way you want if you like. I then
built ftape and installed it. I also set up /etc/conf.modules as required.
For me, this included (in part):
# Load ftape/zftape automatically
alias char-major-27 zftape
# use ftape-internal.o for /dev/qft0
options ftape ft_fdc_driver=ftape-internal,none,none,none
# use CTC-2Mb floppy controller
options ftape-internal ft_fdc_base=0x370 ft_fdc_irq=6 ft_fdc_dma=2
# make sure we have enough swap space. N.B.: swapout is not in /sbin.
pre-install ftape-internal /usr/bin/swapout 32
# Try to reduce overruns: can be [1-16]: higher: less overruns
# Try to reduce overruns: can be [0-15]: higher: less overruns
# Documentation says both: 8-(
options ftape-internal ft_fdc_threshold=15
# Set the maximum allowable data rate for the FDC. Must be one of
# 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, or 4000.
options ftape-internal ft_fdc_rate_limit=1000
YMMV for the contents of the above file.
This works fine.
--
Jean-David Beyer .~.
Shrewsbury, New Jersey /V\
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Registered Linux User 85642. ^^-^^
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