Re: Sony CDROM 33A

[Jeffrey Ebert <jebert@earthlink.net>]

Dennis Chambers wrote:
> 
> The Debian Linux Distrubution has been my first experience with UN*X > << (I hope that's right).
> So far everything has gone without a hitch, except that I have yet
> to figure out how to access my sony 33A cdrom drive. Any suggestions
> would be greatly appreciated.

Dennis,

You need to get line wrapping working properly on your mailer, but
I'll leave that one to you.

First of all, your kernel must be built with CDU31A/33A support. If it
is not, you may be able to load it as a module, but I'm not sure about
that. I suggest that you try the following configuration, and if
nothing seems to work, then you need to get the kernel source package
and build it with CDU31A/33A support.

Here is an excerpt from the CDROM Howto:

-----8<-------
       Principal author: Corey Minyard (minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com)
  Multi-session support: yes
 Multiple drive support: no
Loadable module support: yes
   Reading audio frames: yes
           Auto-probing: no
            Device file: /dev/cdu31a, major 15
     Configuration file: cdu31a.h
   Kernel config option: Sony CDU31A/CDU33A CDROM support?
            README file: README.cdu31a

This driver accepts a kernel command line of the form:

      cdu31a=<io-address>,<interrupt>,PAS

The first number is the I/O base address of the card (e.g. 0x340). The
second is the interrupt number to use (0
means to use polled i/o). The optional third parameter should be "PAS"
if the drive is connected to a Pro-Audio
Spectrum 16 sound card, otherwise left blank.

The device file can be created using:

      % mknod /dev/cdu31a b 15 0

See the file README.cdu31a for more information on this driver.

Also see the Web page put together by Jeffrey Oxenreider (
zureal@infinet.com) that covers a lot of common
problems with these drives. It can be found at
http://www.infinet.com/~zureal/cdu31a.html.
-----8<-------

This driver no longer autoprobes. Here is a list of addresses that
used to be used for autoprobing, excerpted from the source:

-----8<-------
#if 0   /* No autoconfig any more. See Note at beginning
           of this file. */
   { 0x340,     0 },    /* Standard configuration Sony Interface */
   { 0x1f88,    0 },    /* Fusion CD-16 */
   { 0x230,     0 },    /* SoundBlaster 16 card */
   { 0x360,     0 },    /* Secondary standard Sony Interface */
   { 0x320,     0 },    /* Secondary standard Sony Interface */
   { 0x330,     0 },    /* Secondary standard Sony Interface */
   { 0x634,     0 },    /* Sound FX SC400 */
   { 0x654,     0 },    /* Sound FX SC400 */
#endif
-----8<-------

And finally, here is the configuration that I use in my lilo.conf for
a soundblaster 16 intf card from a Creative MM kit:

-----8<-------
image = /vmlinuz
   label = Linux
   root = /dev/hda3
   append="cdu31a=0x230,0"
-----8<-------

BTW, my drive is also a 33A, but all the device and driver names use
31a. I think that the only differences are various additional
features, and the 31a driver supports all of them. For me, anyway.

-- 
Jeff Ebert
jebert@earthlink.net
ho-hum