Re: Driver installation problems
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The modem in the PC is an ISA card modem. Will this map to one of the /dev/ ttyS's? Rember, I'm primarily a Mac person, so I don't know an IRQ from my left knee, and to me an I/O address is a place one one of the moons of Jupiter that the postman delivers mail to. Welcome. I was a Mac user for many years. Switched to Debian, and never looked back (although IRQ's are spawn of satan). The hardware can be a pain at times, but the quality of the OS, the support, the performance, the features, and not least of all the philosophy far more than make up for any hardware problems. Note that you generally solve the hardware problems once, and then forget about them. If Linux can find my modem. Should be able to, unless it's one of those evil WinModems (leaves out some of the chips to save money, and lets your CPU handle the job the missing hardware should have been doing). Linux doesn't handle those, but if it's a good old fashioned modem, you should be fine. Prepare for an intro to IRQs and IO ports. I tell you all this because I'm in the mood, and because you *may* need to know it if you have trouble getting the modem to work. IRQ's and I/O ports are system resources, and for the most part you can think of them as a way for hardware to communicate with the rest of the system. For example, a serial port generally needs a hardware address (I/O port) to send data to other devices, and an IRQ (Interrupt ReQuest line) to notify the CPU (or whoever) that it needs attention. A PC has only 15 IRQ's, and these have to be assigned across all the devices that need them. Generally devices cannot share IRQ's, and some devices require more than one. Also some IRQ's are already reserved by the motherboard. It would be nice if the system would just automatically arbitrate who gets which resources without you ever having to muck around with things, but in the PC world, it's not that simple. The PC is an old crufty architecture, so sometimes you have to help it along. Plug and Pray is an attempt to fix some of this, but in many cases it's caused as many problems as it's solved. What it boils down to is that for some devices you have to tell them which IRQ they should use, then you have to tell the system about your decision too. Telling the device may mean moving a jumper on the device or flipping a DIP switch, or it may mean going to the machine's BIOS setup screen and selecting some values. Telling the system (at least under linux, if it's necessary (linux can often auto-detect this stuff), usually means running a config program at boot). Most serial ports require one dedicated IRQ, and you tell the serial port what IRQ to use (or put it on automatic) with the BIOS config program. On my computer you get there by pressing F1 during bootup. A PC normally has 2 serial ports, and Debian does a pretty good job of configuring them without any intervention, so you may be able to leave this alone. Unfortunately, the ISA modem card will have it's own on-board serial port, so you have to be a little careful. Basically, you want to make sure (if you can) that it ends up on a different IRQ and port than any other device (including the built in serial ports). You may be able to just set some jumpers on the card to put it where you want it, or you may need to disable one of the other built in serial ports using the BIOS config program so that the ISA modem can use the disabled serial port's now free resources. You can figure out how the serial ports are already configured on your machine (assuming that you have linux up), by running setserial -bg /dev/ttyS* as root (see man setserial for more info). This will list all the currently configured serial ports and what resources they are using. Here's a sample: # setserial -bg /dev/ttyS* /dev/ttyS0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) /dev/ttyS1 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) Note one port is using IRQ 4 and one is using IRQ 3. The 0x numbers are the I/O ports they are using. I didn't configure this myself; Debian did it at startup automatically. The script that handles this auto-configuration is /etc/rc.boot/0setserial. If I had your modem installed setserial -bg's output might look like this: /dev/ttyS0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) /dev/ttyS1 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) /dev/ttyS2 at 0x0??? (irq = 4) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) Note that the ??? would be filled in with some address, but I don't know what it would be. Note also that I depicted two serial ports sharing the same IRQ. Things could be set up that way, but you'd have to be sure to never, ever use both ports. The sytem would get confused about who was saying what. What you'd really like is something like this: /dev/ttyS0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) /dev/ttyS1 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) /dev/ttyS2 at 0x0??? (irq = 5) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) where ??? is different from the other two values too.
Re: Driver installation problems
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The modem in the PC is an ISA card modem. Will this map to one of the /dev/ ttyS's? Usually. The kernel serial drivers will identify modems at standard locations, because they look like serial ports. I could use MacGZip to gzip the .deb files and transfer them on a PC-formatted floppy, but would I get much compression, or are the files already compressed to the max? The latter. They're basically a header and a .tar.gz. (But why don't you try?) Anyone know of a compression/archive format that allows multi-volume archives with tools available for both platforms? I used suntar on the Mac and `tar xvf /dev/fd0' on my Linux box. You don't get compression but you easily get any sized files across. I think it might also be possible to use it to write the resc1440.bin to a disk. -- Carey Evans * [EMAIL PROTECTED] [UNIX] appears to have the inside track on being the replacement for CP/M on the largest microcomputers (e.g. those based on 68000...) -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Driver installation problems
Rob Browning wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The modem in the PC is an ISA card modem. Will this map to one of the /dev/ ttyS's? Rember, I'm primarily a Mac person, so I don't know an IRQ from my left knee, and to me an I/O address is a place one one of the moons of Jupiter that the postman delivers mail to. ... What you'd really like is something like this: /dev/ttyS0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) /dev/ttyS1 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) /dev/ttyS2 at 0x0??? (irq = 5) is a 16550A (spd_vhi) Hopefully your modem is smart enough to have jumpers or dip switches selecting COM port and IRQ. Selecting COM3 and IRQ5 should give you this from setserial: /dev/ttyS2 at 0x03e8 (irq = 5) is a [8250|16450|16550A] There are couple of gotchas, though. Hopefully you won't run into them... I'll download the software directly that way. In the meantime, anyone else have any ideas? I could use MacGZip to gzip the .deb files and transfer them on a PC-formatted floppy, but would I get much compression, or are the files already compressed to the max? .deb files are already compressed, so you'd be wasting your time. Disk images, however, will probably compress. Get gzip.exe for DOS to uncompress them and you'll be able to use 1.44 floppies. I think nobody had can't find misc.o problems with 1.44 floppies recently. -- Dimitri reply to emaziuk at curtin dot edu dot au --- What color is a chameleon on a mirror? ( Zen koan ) -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Driver installation problems
Here's the situation: I am a web developer. I have a PowerMac 8500 at home, on which I do most of my development. My ISP is a pain to deal with regarding CGI scripts and stuff, so I decided to set up an intranet at home to do my development on. I got a used Packard Bell 486 machine with a floppy drive, and put an SMC Ethernet card in it. I was able after a huge hassle to install the base Debian distribution on the PC. However, because I had downloaded the image files on my Mac, I couldn't mount them; I had had to transfer them on a PC disk to the PC and run rawrite on them there. Consequently, I had to use the 1.2 Mb driver and rescue images (because the mac couldn't write the larger files to the PC formatted disks thanks to the space that the formatting takes up). During the Linux installation, I got the the driver installation phase. I was unable to install drivers for either my Logitech Bus Mouse, or my Ethernet card, due to dependencies in those drivers to object files that the installer apparently couldn't find (misc.o for the mouse, something like 8303.o for the Ethernet card). I realize that I could get the Kernel sources and recompile them; however, the source files for the kernal (not to mention the gcc binary .deb package) are too big to transfer via floppy, and (obviously) I can't transfer the files via Ethernet. What are my options for getting this working? I have a 14.4 modem installed in the PC, but there is no modem entry in /dev. I don't have a CD ROM (nor do I have money right now to purchase the Debian CD). Until I get the Ethernet working, this setup is pretty much useless to me. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Driver installation problems
Kevin Traas wrote: Dave Neuer wrote: Here's the situation: I am a web developer. I have a PowerMac 8500 at home, on which I do most of my development. My ISP is a pain to deal with regarding CGI scripts and stuff, so I decided to set up an intranet at home to do my development on. I got a used Packard Bell 486 machine with a floppy drive, and put an SMC Ethernet card in it. I was able after a huge hassle to install the base Debian distribution on the PC. However, because I had downloaded the image files on my Mac, I couldn't mount them; I had had to transfer them on a PC disk to the PC and run rawrite on them there. Consequently, I had to use the 1.2 Mb driver and rescue images (because the mac couldn't write the larger files to the PC formatted disks thanks to the space that the formatting takes up). During the Linux installation, I got the the driver installation phase. I was unable to install drivers for either my Logitech Bus Mouse, or my Ethernet card, due to dependencies in those drivers to object files that the installer apparently couldn't find (misc.o for the mouse, something like 8303.o for the Ethernet card). I realize that I could get the Kernel sources and recompile them; however, the source files for the kernal (not to mention the gcc binary .deb package) are too big to transfer via floppy, and (obviously) I can't transfer the files via Ethernet. What are my options for getting this working? I have a 14.4 modem installed in the PC, but there is no modem entry in /dev. I don't have a CD ROM (nor do I have money right now to purchase the Debian CD). Until I get the Ethernet working, this setup is pretty much useless to me. A CDROM would be, by far, your easiest option. You can get a cheap ATAPI compatible drive from www.onsale.com or something. You can get the Debian distribution for $4 + sh (www.lsl.com). Downloading what you need via 14.4 is going to cost you lots from your ISP - many hours of download time. Use that money instead to invest in the drive and CD set. For your modem, you can use: /dev/ttyS0- COM1 /dev/ttyS1- COM2 /dev/ttyS2- COM3 /dev/ttyS3- COM4 later, Well, my ISP doesn't charge for time, and I literally have no money right now (having a baby in the next few weeks, wife stopped working). So buying anything is out. The modem in the PC is an ISA card modem. Will this map to one of the /dev/ ttyS's? Rember, I'm primarily a Mac person, so I don't know an IRQ from my left knee, and to me an I/O address is a place one one of the moons of Jupiter that the postman delivers mail to. If Linux can find my modem, I'll download the software directly that way. In the meantime, anyone else have any ideas? I could use MacGZip to gzip the .deb files and transfer them on a PC-formatted floppy, but would I get much compression, or are the files already compressed to the max? Anyone know of a compression/archive format that allows multi-volume archives with tools available for both platforms? Thanks, Dave -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
