On Tue, 19. June 2007 01:25:56 Clark Sann wrote: > Charles Obler wrote: > > --- "Rajko M." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I'll write article on openSUSE wiki about parallel > >> port scanner installation, > >> but I have no ZIP drive and I can't do much to > >> rescue information how to > >> install them. Your experience can help to people > >> like you to give second life > >> to their ZIP drives. > >> > >> -- > >> Regards, > >> Rajko. > > > > Wow! I HAVE a parallel port scanner with M$ driver > > disk. I tried to find a way to get the scanner to > > work with Linux, but finally gave up. > > > > When you write the article, it will be very helpful to > > me! Thanks! > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________________ > >___________ Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's > > Comedy with an Edge to see what's on, when. > > http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222 > > It turned out to be very easy to make my 100 MB Parallel port zip drive > work. > Here are 6 simple steps along with some comments.... > > 1. From a root shell, run modprobe ppa and modprobe imm. > One of them should work to install the drivers for your parallel port > zip drive. > > ( I guess "install the drivers" is accurate?? > I am a little fuzzy as to just what it is that modprobe does. > I'm even more fuzzy about what insmod does.) > > For me, imm did not work, but ppa did. > > My research showed that imm only works for newer drives. Mine is REAL > old. > > I don't really understand why, but when running modprobe, the results of > the modprobe > command are not shown in the terminal window. Goofy linux. Instead you > have to go > look at var/log/messages to see the results of the execution of the > command. > One of them should produce messages indicating the parallel port zip > drive has been found. > The messages will also tell you what device has been created. This will > be an entry in the /dev folder. > Once I ran modprobe ppa, a new /dev/sda4 folder appeared. Make a note > of the folder name. > > 2. Create a mount point. I added a folder named zip100.0 to /media.... > what I ended up was this.... > /media/zip100.0. > This becomes the place where the directory of the zip drive will be > placed when you get the > kernel talking to the hardware. > > 3. Modify /etc/fstab. This ties the device to the mount point. I > modified fstab by adding the following line.... > > /dev/sda4 /media/zip100.0 vfat auto,user,exec,sync 0 > 0 > > This tells the kernel to tie the device (/dev/sda4) to the mount point > (/media/zip100.0). > It also says that the drive will be formatted using FAT, > that it should be automatically mounted > (which did not work so you might just as well put in noauto instead), > that any user can mount the drive, > that you can execute binaries, > and that the mount occurs synchronously. > > 4. Now it is time to mount the drive. Everything up to now is setting > up the plumbing to allow you to mount. > Stuff a zip disk in the drive, preferably one with data on it. > From a shell, type "mount /media/zip100.0" > Now you should see the directory of the disk in /media/zip100.0. > Isn't linux wonderful? And so easy too! > > When you are done, issue the command "umount /media/zip100.0". You will > not be able to eject the disk until you > unmount it. Note, unmount is "umount" not "unmount". > > 5. There are only two problems remaining. The first is that it sucks > to have to enter "modprobe ppa" or "modprobe imm" every > time you boot. To fix this, in /etc/init.d/boot.local, add either > "modprobe ppa" or "modprobe imm". This will > cause the command to be automatically executed at boot time.
The correct place for loading kernel modules on boot is /etc/modules ---8<--- /etc/modules ---8<--- # /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time. # # This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded # at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored. ppa #imm ---8<--- ---8<--- ---8<--- > 6. The remaining problem is that you might wish there was an icon on > your desktop you could click to view the drive contents > in Konqueror. It turns out to be surprisingly easy to add this. > > Right click on the desktop. Select Create New and then Link to Device > and then Zip Device. > In the Devices tab, select the device (/dev/sda4) and you are done. An > icon will be created. > > How to test your new zip drive installation.... > > Stuff a disk in the drive. > Click the new icon on the desktop. > Konqueror should come up with the drive contents. You should be able to > add and delete files and folders. > > When you are done, right click on the icon and select either eject or > unmount. > Eject should unmount the drive and then eject it. > For me eject did not always do the eject but it did always unmount it. > You can always eject it manually. > > Problems. > > For some reason modprobe ppa did not work at first. > Or maybe it did but I didn't know enough about what to look for because > the result was in messages. > I'm not sure what happened there. > Also sometimes, the whole thing stops working and you cannot read or > unmount or eject. I had to reboot when this happened. > Restarting KDE did not work. > > I hope this helps. Unfortunately I no longer have my zip drive or any > disks. > I only had the system long enough to see if any old disks I had laying > around had any useful data on them. > > I will still try to help, especially in the short term while my memory > is still good! HA! regards, thomas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
