On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 04:49:28PM -0500, Noah L. Meyerhans wrote:
>
> Well, I can't say I've got the same problems. I've been using 2.4.0
> since about test8 on my laptop, with almost complete success WRT PCMCIA.
> One difference is that I don't use the PCMCIA modules that ship with the
> kernel, but the pcmcia-cs package from unstable.
>
> What kind of network card do you have? Have you tried ejecting it
> before shutting down? Is the behavior what you'd expect?
>
For a while, at least, there were some serious issues with the kernel
PCMCIA code and the advice was to not use it. I'm looking in my
source tree for pcmcia-cs 3.1.23 at README-2.4:
Notes about PCMCIA in the 2.4 kernel
PCMCIA kernel driver support is now included in the 2.4 linux kernel
tree. While it shares most of the same code with the standalone
PCMCIA driver package, there are some important differences. The
kernel PCMCIA support is also still evolving. This README is up to
date as of the 2.4test9-pre* kernels.
The kernel PCMCIA code has the same functionality as the driver side
of the pcmcia-cs package. It does not eliminate the need to install
the pcmcia-cs package, since it requires the same user tools (cardmgr,
cardctl, /etc/pcmcia/* files). For now, the drivers in pcmcia-cs can
still be built for 2.4 kernels, so you have a choice of using either
the in-kernel PCMCIA drivers, or the drivers included in pcmcia-cs.
<snip>
Known problems and limitations:
o ISA-to-PCMCIA and PCI-to-PCMCIA bridges are not supported. The
bridge driver interface in 2.4 is significantly different, and the
tcic and i82365 drivers have not been ported to the new interface.
o Some of the less widely used client drivers, like the memory card
drivers, have not been ported into the 2.4 driver tree yet.
o The yenta_socket driver does not have the /proc interface of the
i82365 driver, so the dump_exca and dump_cardbus tools do not work.
It actually has no debugging support at all.
o The kernel PCMCIA package cannot be configured to use PnP BIOS calls
for resource management. This will not be fixed, but is rarely a
serious issue.
o There is a somewhat serious API issue with the new "PCI hot plug"
interface used by the new tulip and 3c59x drivers. It is unable to
pass device name information to cardmgr, so the PCMCIA configuration
scripts don't work. Fixing this properly is non-trivial, because
the new API is not intended to be tightly linked to the PCMCIA card
control interface at all. A substitute for that interface, but for
PCI hot plug, has not really been sketched out yet.
Answers to some common questions:
Q: Are these two versions of PCMCIA both going to continue with active
development?
A: The way I see things now, the kernel PCMCIA subsystem will probably
be too unstable for widespread deployment, at least in the early
days of 2.4. So the standalone package will probably be widely
used for some time yet. However, the kernel PCMCIA subsystem
should eventually stabilize and be the focus of new development.
I expect that development for the standalone kernel modules will
shift away from adding functionality, towards mainly bug fixes.
Q: Which should I use / which is better? The kernel PCMCIA, or the
standalone PCMCIA?
A: It really depends. The client drivers should generally behave the
same. Some of the internals of the kernel PCMCIA system are very
different and less mature than the standalone drivers. Some legacy
hardware is currently only supported by the standalone drivers. At
this point, I'd recommend using the kernel drivers if you have a
specific need or if you are interested in helping test and debug.
If you mainly just want something that works, then the standalone
subsystem is probably a better bet at the moment.
<snip>
It kinda looks like they've fixed the worst of whatever it was I'm
dimly remembering (or, at least, they think they've fixed it). But
they still suggest you go with the separate pcmcia-cs package, which
means, in your kernel configuration, you say CONFIG_PCMCIA=n.
--
David Benfell
benfell@greybeard95a.com
---
The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
-- Benjamin Franklin.
[from fortune]
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