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Re: ATAPI CD-writer



On Sunday 13 July 2003 06:30, Pigeon wrote:

(some snips for bandwidth)

> > The first CD actually gives a choice when starting the install, of
> > idepci, compact, vanilla or bf24, IIRC.   But they don't seem to be in
> > deb package form.
>
> What you get on the first CD are kernel boot images, so you can boot
> from them; you can't boot directly from a deb package. These same
> kernels are available packaged into deb packages, but on the 5th CD,
> not the first.

That's what I'd figured, yes.   Obviously the installer doesn't need the deb 
package to work from.


> > Well now, lsmod, modprobe and insmod tell me that  ide-scsi and  sg  are
> > present, but  sr_mod isn't:
> >
> > lsmod
> > Module                  Size  Used by
> > sg                     14928   0  (unused)
> > ide-scsi                7060   0
> > autofs                  9160   2  (autoclean)
> > lockd                  42420   0  (autoclean) (unused)
> > sunrpc                 57816   0  (autoclean) [lockd]
> > nls_cp437               3896   2  (autoclean)
> > af_packet               6152   0  (unused)
> > unix                   11352  99  (autoclean)
> >
> > # insmod sr_mod
> > insmod: sr_mod: no module by that name found
> >
> > And it isn't in any subdirectory of /lib/modules/2.2.20  either
> >
> > cdrecord -scanbus
> > Cdrecord 1.10 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2001 J?rg Schilling
> > cdrecord: No such file or directory. Cannot open SCSI driver.
>
> I take it you're either doing this as root or your cdrecord is setuid
> root? If not, what are the permissions on /dev/sg* (and /dev/scd*) ?

I'm doing almost all of this su root.    If anything fails as 'me' I su root 
and try again.

> > I've got /dev/cdrom symlinked to scd0
> > alti:/dev# ls -l cdrom
> > lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            4 Jul 11 00:13 cdrom -> scd0
>
> Fine.
>
> > My /etc/fstab says
> > /dev/cdrom      /cdrom          iso9660 ro,user,noauto          0       0
>
> Fine.
>
> > And my Grub  /boot/grub/menu.lst file says
> > title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.2.20
> > root            (hd0,0)
> > kernel          /vmlinuz-2.2.20 root=/dev/hda5 hdb=ide-scsi ro
> > savedefault
> >
> > I can still mount the cd-rom as a IDE device:
> >
> > alti:/# mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdb /cdrom
> > mount: block device /dev/hdb is write-protected, mounting read-only
> >
> > but NOT as a SCSI one:
> >
> > alti:/# mount -t iso9660 /dev/scd0 /cdrom
> > mount: the kernel does not recognize /dev/scd0 as a block device
> >        (maybe `insmod driver'?)
> >
> > I suppose this means I need sr_mod?   I'm a little surprised the
> > 'vanilla' kernel doesn't have it already, since it has sg and ide-scsi.  
> >  But I can't find sr_mod anywhere.

I now think this was a red herring, btw.

>
> This should be the other way round, ie. mounting as IDE should fail.
> Try Andreas's suggestion of the ide-cd ignore=hdb option. Also,
> although I don't use GRUB myself, the above 'kernel' line looks
> suspicious to me - the 'ro' in such lines is there to indicate
> 'initially mount the root filesystem read-only', and as such I would
> expect it to go immediately after 'root=/dev/hda5', not at the end of
> the line. (I might not be 100% on track there though.)

OK, good point.   In fact grub-install did create the line with 'ro' directly 
after  root=/dev/hda5.   I added the 'hdb=ide-scsi' myself.   

However, as I noted in a later post, X-cd-roast is now working so the 'ro' 
doesn't seem to have applied itself to 'hdb'.    The reason cdrecord was 
failing was that I modified the *wrong* 'menu.lst' file in /boot/grub, it 
should have been the one in /boot/boot/grub.   I've since removed the file 
from /boot/grub.

> > Searching  www.debian.org  for   sr_mod  lists it in kernels  2.4.16 and
> > 2.4.18 (but no 2.2.nn kernels).    (I assume this means the 2.2.20 kernel
> > (as shipped with Woody) definitely doesn't include sr_mod?)
>
> It doesn't exclude the possibility of it being built into the kernel,
> which I consider more likely, as otherwise it wouldn't be possible to
> burn CDs with a standard woody kernel.
>
> Having said that, I remember when I first got a CD burner, I built the
> latest cdrecord from (non-Debianised) source and found some comment
> in the docs about some issues with 2.2.x kernels - unfortunately I
> can't remember what - so I built the latest 2.4.x kernel from
> kernel.org, which was 2.4.8 at the time.

Well, cdrecord now works OK with  the 2.2.20  ('vanilla') kernel, with 
ide-scsi installed, but not a sign of sr_mod, I think that may have been a 
red herring.

> > I assume I *could* download and install a 2.4.16 or 2.4.18 kernel, but
> > would this cause conflicts with all the stuff I already have installed?  
> >  I'd rather just download the sr_mod module from somewhere (if I could
> > find it!) and install it with insmod than download a 8MB kernel image
> > file.....
>
> Check your bootloader configuration first, as Andreas has said.

Yes, I did.   Found the problem.    Thanks!!

> Installing a new 2.4.x kernel won't break anything, and is likely to
> be less trouble overall than trying to find an sr_mod that exactly
> matches your existing kernel. I know it's a bitch having to download
> big files - I'm on dialup myself - but sometimes it's the stablest
> option, unfortunately!
>
> Do I take it that you don't have the full 7-CD installation set? Or
> are you simply keen to make sure your 2.4.x kernel includes the latest
> security updates? If the latter, you could always try installing a
> kernel-image off the 5th CD to see if it works, so you can decide if
> it's worth going on to download the security-patched version.

I only have the first two CD's.   I checked the entire contents before I 
decided to try Debian and everything I use/need was on the first two CD's 
with the exception of kppp which I downloaded myself.
For me, security isn't a major issue, since I'm the only one in the house who 
knows how to use any computer, and I'm on a modem that's only on-line when I 
dial up.

So, any 2.4 kernel would be a big download, for me.   I see debian.org have 
'k6' versions, too, which are tailor-made for my CPU.   Maybe it's time I 
replaced my 28k modem with a 56, it would presumably halve the time to 
download big files like that.

Anyway, X-cd-roast just made a functioning copy of Woody cd #1, just for 
practice, so I guess that particular problem is fixed.

Many thanks to all who helped me with information and advice.

Chris



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