Adrian Burd wrote:
>>>>>>"et" == et <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>>>>>
>
> et> On Tuesday 09 July 2002 04:50 pm, you wrote:
> >> I'm just wondering, but does one ever get a reply from Mandrake
> >> Support? I purchased a Mandrake 8.2 boxed set which is means to
> >> have online support. I went to the website and filled out the
> >> forms and put in a request. That was 4 days ago. Should I give
> >> up or wait some more? Has anyone else had any experience with
> >> Mandrake support?
> >>
> >> Thanks
> et> My bet was for some reason they could not reply (like a typo
> et> in your e-mail address) but what was the problem....
>
>I've double checked that and I got a standard reply back by email when
>I registered, so I don't think it can be that. I'll check again though.
>
>
> et> we would all love to have a real problem to chew on...
>
>Well, I asked here a couple of days back and got a couple of replies which
>didn't work out unfortunately.
>
>The problems is this:
>
>System: Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop
>
>I put Mandrake 8.2 Powerpack edition on it as the sole OS (no dual
>booting this baby - though I might put VMWare on it later). I must say
>that the install was seamless (it even had a pretty recent NVIDIA
>driver).
>
>The machine came with a CD-ROM installed and a module bay which can
>house a CD-RW, a ZIP-250 or a Floppy. I installed Mandrake with the
>CD-RW installed.
>
>If I shutdown, take out the CD-RW and put in say, the ZIP drive, and
>reboot, I cannot access the zip drive and attempting to do so hangs
>the process (though fortunately not the machine).
>
>So, the problem of the day is, how to get the machine to recognize
>when I plug in a different piece of hardware into the module bay and
>have that piece of hardware work. Any ideas?
>
>Thanks for all your help.
>
>Adrian
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
>Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
>
Hmm,
Well, your devices and filesystems must be set up in /etc/fstab. devfs
will mount what is there except that the ZIP and the CDRW and the Floppy
may all be sharing an ide designation., like /dev/hdc.
so, when you boot with CDRW, the append line of your boot should contain
hdc=ide-scsi (I am guessing on the hdc--never seen a Dell 8100 which
has other multiple issues with mandrake 8.2 regarding powersaving and
failure to wake up, thanks to a broken BIOS, but you can get the device
designator from /etc/lilo.conf
to enable scsi emulation for the CDRW. ide-scsi works only for CDs,
DVDs, and CDRWs as does the ide-cd module.
ide-floppy would handle the floppy unless it were a genuine floppy
interface (There would be a second plug in the bay)
and ide-scsi of course won't work with the ZIP250.
OK what you have is a device that is not set up to be switched by
hotplug or devfs, but which uses a customized version of windows which
is set to detect and adjust to whatever is plugged in.
You can do that with linux, but it is no small task. You need separate
boots for each case and not enough of the system is in at boot to do the
autodetection and adjustment, so you have to set up the boots yourself
and select the one appropriate to your installation. Once you have
booted one of the three, there needs to be a script called before
/etc/fstab is read which commonts out all but one of the lines below...
/mnt/zip /mnt/zip supermount dev=/dev/hdc4,fs=auto,sync,unhide 0 0
/mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom supermount
dev=/dev/scd0,fs=iso9660,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/mnt/floppy /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,sync,unhide 0 0
That third line assumes that the floppy does have a separate connector
in the bay and is a genuine floppy interface.
Well only ONE of those lines can be present in the /etc/fstab that is
read, so before it is read, in the file
/etc/rc.sysinit
You need to call a routine (which should reside as a root-executable in
/sbin, because that is all that is accessible when it is called)
which does the surgery on the file /etc/fstab.
Now this needs to be done before any other filesystems are mounted but
after / is remounted read/write.
That is very difficult to achieve, because all that is available is the
shell or a binary at that time, and this is not an easy shell script.
An alternative is to keep all three commented out in /etc/fstab and have
/etc/rc.local call a script which uncomments the appropriate line and
also asks for a mount which forces the /etc/fstab entry to promote to
the supermount table.
I have a sample here which was used to dual-boot a cantankerous CDRW
that did not want to play audio CDs under SCSI emulation. The
principles should apply to the sort of script you need. There would be
a couple of hours coding and testing _with_your_machine_ to make sure it
works corectly.
#!/usr/bin/env python
################################################################
# Flipper program for dualbooting bad CDRWs one as audio
# the other as burner
# Copyright 2002 by Civileme@mandrakesoft INC
# Licensed under GNU GPL2 See www.fsf.org for license details
# FREE SOFTWARE
#################################################################
import os
import sys
import string
import popen2
def complain(streeng):
print
print streeng
print
print 'What do you want me to do with that?'
print
sys.exit(1)
print 'Welcome to dualbootRW'
jade=open('/etc/fstab','r')
pearl=open('/etc/extab','w')
J=jade.readlines()
ix=popen2.Popen3('/sbin/lsmod | grep ide-scsi')
G=ix.fromchild.readline()
if string.find(G,"ide-scsi")<0:
idecd=1
else:
idecd=0
for X in J:
i=string.find(X,"/mnt/cdrom")
if i>=0:
if i==0:
X="#"+X # Add the commenting out so they start same
if idecd==1:
if string.find(X,"/dev/scd")<0: #audio and not the scd line
X=X[1:] #uncomment
else: #burner boot
if string.find(X,"/dev/scd")>=0: # burner and found burner line
X=X[1:]
pearl.write(X)
pearl.close()
os.system('mv /etc/fstab /etc/fstab~')
os.system('mv /etc/extab /etc/fstab')
os.system('mount /mnt/cdrom')
# end of program dualbootRW
Now you know why support did not answer. This is a little more involved
than what is covered by support, and they would hate to be the bearers
of such bad news.. If you want a cause, blame the manufacturer, who
made these very non-standard dodges to fit everything into a little box
then covered the non-standardness with windows driver software and by
preinstalling the system already configured.
Civileme
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
