Re: rookie

[Marques Johansson <displague@linuxfan.com>]

Yesterday, kmarti@micronpc.com, spilled the beans:

> First time user where do I get parameters for cd rom drive when first
> loading drivers.
> Dick

There aren't really paramters necessary except on some really old
cd-drives.

the way it works is this:

the kernel has support for your scsi or ide bus.
the kernel has support for scsi-cd or ide-cd drives.
when the kernel is booting (everything before you see INIT) it detects
your buses and the drives attached.  They become accessible as special 
files in the /dev directory that point to what device the kernel knows it
as.

example: 

/dev/hda (ide primary/master)
/dev/hdb (ide primary/slave)
/dev/hdc (ide secondary/master)
/dev/hdd (ide secondary/slave)

/dev/sda (first scsi drive)
/dev/scd0 (first scsi cd)


So as long as the kernel detects your drive, you don't need paramaters or
extra drivers (we call them kernel modules).

you can see if it was detected by doing "dmesg | more"  this will let you
look at the kernel's boot-up messages.  you will see IDE-CD Driver or
something like that, that is not it, look for something that specifically
has the name of your CD-drive manufacturer or says something like
"hdc: CD820E.1v78b9108, ATAPI CDROM drive"

so now if you want to "mount" your cd drive, just do:
mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /cdrom

 (this requires you to have a cd in the drive)
 (you will need a /cdrom directory to do that, if you don't have one
  do "mkdir /cdrom", or maybe you will have a /mnt/cdrom - either will do)

you should now be able to access the cd in the drive.

when you are done just do:

umount /cdrom

you can make it permanent by putting a line in /etc/fstab - like
/dev/hdc  /mnt/cdrom iso9660 defaults 0 0

................

Now there is a possibility that you know all this and you really just
meant how do i get the parameters for a specific kernel module, in which
case you either view the source, or do "modinfo -p modulename"

make sure when entering those io addresses you use "0x3f8" rather than
"3f8" ...

hope i helped someone :)
 -- 
  Marques Johansson
displague@linuxfan.com

Warning! This not checked for grammer or speling. You figure it out!
Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature, please!