Bug#332942: kernel-image-2.6.8-2-386: fails to insert floppy.ko claiming "io-port 0x03f2 in use"

[Francesco Poli <frx@firenze.linux.it>]

Package: kernel-image-2.6.8-2-386
Version: 2.6.8-16
Severity: normal

I installed Debian sarge (3.1 r0) on an old Pentium machine, following the
manual debootstrap procedure (described in the Debian sarge installation
guide, appendix C.). I could not use debian-installer because I didn't
have enough memory (only 16 Mibyte).

Now I cannot mount floppy disks (not even as root):

# mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /media/floppy/
mount: /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device
# ls -altrF /dev/fd0
brw-rw----  1 root floppy 2, 0 Feb 26  2005 /dev/fd0
# tail -3 /var/log/kern.log
Oct  9 16:33:55 oldbox kernel: inserting floppy driver for 2.6.8-2-386
Oct  9 16:33:55 oldbox kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
Oct  9 16:33:55 oldbox kernel: floppy0: Floppy io-port 0x03f2 in use

But io-port 0x03f2 does not seem to be in use:

# cat /proc/ioports
0000-001f : dma1
0020-0021 : pic1
0040-005f : timer
0060-006f : keyboard
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00a1 : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
0170-0177 : ide1
01f0-01f7 : ide0
02f8-02ff : serial
0376-0376 : ide1
03c0-03df : vga+
03f3-03f3 : pnp 00:07
03f6-03f6 : ide0
03f8-03ff : serial
04d0-04d1 : pnp 00:07
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
f000-f00f : 0000:00:07.1
  f000-f007 : ide0
  f008-f00f : ide1

The error shows up even when simply trying to load floppy.ko:

# lsmod | grep floppy
# modprobe floppy
FATAL: Error inserting floppy (/lib/modules/2.6.8-2-386/kernel/drivers/block/floppy.ko): Device or resource busy
# tail -3 /var/log/kern.log
Oct  9 16:41:02 oldbox kernel: inserting floppy driver for 2.6.8-2-386
Oct  9 16:41:02 oldbox kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
Oct  9 16:41:02 oldbox kernel: floppy0: Floppy io-port 0x03f2 in use


Please note that:

* I can mount the same floppy disk flawlessly if I boot with
  System Rescue CD (a live distro currently based on Linux 2.4.x:
  http://www.sysresccd.org/)
* I had no difficulties in using the floppy drive when other
  distros were installed on the same machine (DamnSmallLinux
  http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/, DeLi Linux http://www.delilinux.de/)
* I even tried booting with the floppy=thinkpad kernel parameter
  (despite this machine is not a laptop), but the error still
  showed up
* I searched the f...ine web and found a few people that experienced
  the same problem, but most of them got no answer from the forum
  or mailing list they were writing to, while the rest of them
  got suggestions that do not seem to work (at least for me...)


What can I do?
Thanks for your attention.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i586)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-2-386
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages kernel-image-2.6.8-2-386 depends on:
ii  coreutils [fileutils]         5.2.1-2    The GNU core utilities
ii  initrd-tools                  0.1.81.1   tools to create initrd image for p
ii  module-init-tools             3.2-pre1-2 tools for managing Linux kernel mo

-- no debconf information