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Re: TDK ProDigital



> Hi all,
> 
> <intro>
> I thought I'd let myself be known to y'all before I bore you all with
> questions which can probably be answered in a HOWTO
> 
> I have a Universal Scientific Aries notebook (P233MMX, 32Mb, 4Gb HDD,
> NeoMagic video, Opti MAD16 sound). I have been using Linux for several
> years, but Debian for about, um, 3 weeks. I stuck it straight onto my
> laptop, more fun!
> </intro>

Welcome to the world of debian, looks like you have an ok machine to me :)
 
> Anyway, I recently got hold of a TDK ProDigital LAN/GSM/ISDN PCMCIA card
> (it was free, so I didn't refuse). I installed the pcmcia-cs stuff, built
> the modules from source (modified kernel) and stuck in the
> card. /var/log/messages told me that it was checking address space, io
> space, etc, then promptly told me IRQRequest: resource unavailable. (I
> don't think that was the exact message, but it's near enough). It also
> immediately told me that it was polling the cards @ 100mS.
> 
> I have checked /etc/pcmcia/config.opt and /etc/pcmcia/network.opt, and
> they seem OK (although the card isn't supported by name).

You might need to tell config.opt not to allow the card system to use the
IRQs which you would otherwise apply to parallel, serial, IR, and sound.
If I recall correctly, the default dodges parallel and serial 1, but you
have to exclude the other two yourself.   

On mine the relevant fragment looks like this
<pre>
# Resources we should not use, even if they appear to be available
#
# First built-in serial port
exclude irq 4
# Second built-in serial port (Infrared in my case)
exclude irq 3
# First built-in parallel port
exclude irq 7
# Audio port
exclude irq 5
</pre> 

If you insert the card and the use
	cardctl ident

...I believe you'll see what it's trying to identify as, and look that
up in /etc/pcmcia/config.  

ISDN pcmcia card. wow.  I hope its ether portion is compatible with something
we already have.  The first I'd check is if anything by TDK is supported.
Poking around on their website, they claim one of their ethercards is "100%
driver compatible with ne2000"

Anyways it is probably possible to clone an entry and at least get ethernet
working.

The thing is mentioned on the mobilix survey of cards but claims the config 
is "under construction". http://mobilix.org/pcmcia_linux.html

I found an article making a big deal that these cards have really nice 
digital connections and TDK chose not to waste any cardspace on an analog
modem component because "most laptops have modems".  But it was from June
and their current product line's "Global Pro" has the modem chipset in it too.
(perhaps enough people whined about losemodems?)

> Any ideas/walk throughs would be greatly appreciated
> 
> Thanks,

Best of luck Craig, and if you succeed, give your config fragment to the
pcmcia team :)


* Heather Stern * star@ many places...



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