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| Linux and parallel port IDE devices |
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| PARIDE v1.03 (c) 1997-8 Grant Guenther <grant@torque.net> |
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| 1. Introduction |
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| Owing to the simplicity and near universality of the parallel port interface |
| to personal computers, many external devices such as portable hard-disk, |
| CD-ROM, LS-120 and tape drives use the parallel port to connect to their |
| host computer. While some devices (notably scanners) use ad-hoc methods |
| to pass commands and data through the parallel port interface, most |
| external devices are actually identical to an internal model, but with |
| a parallel-port adapter chip added in. Some of the original parallel port |
| adapters were little more than mechanisms for multiplexing a SCSI bus. |
| (The Iomega PPA-3 adapter used in the ZIP drives is an example of this |
| approach). Most current designs, however, take a different approach. |
| The adapter chip reproduces a small ISA or IDE bus in the external device |
| and the communication protocol provides operations for reading and writing |
| device registers, as well as data block transfer functions. Sometimes, |
| the device being addressed via the parallel cable is a standard SCSI |
| controller like an NCR 5380. The "ditto" family of external tape |
| drives use the ISA replicator to interface a floppy disk controller, |
| which is then connected to a floppy-tape mechanism. The vast majority |
| of external parallel port devices, however, are now based on standard |
| IDE type devices, which require no intermediate controller. If one |
| were to open up a parallel port CD-ROM drive, for instance, one would |
| find a standard ATAPI CD-ROM drive, a power supply, and a single adapter |
| that interconnected a standard PC parallel port cable and a standard |
| IDE cable. It is usually possible to exchange the CD-ROM device with |
| any other device using the IDE interface. |
| |
| The document describes the support in Linux for parallel port IDE |
| devices. It does not cover parallel port SCSI devices, "ditto" tape |
| drives or scanners. Many different devices are supported by the |
| parallel port IDE subsystem, including: |
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| MicroSolutions backpack CD-ROM |
| MicroSolutions backpack PD/CD |
| MicroSolutions backpack hard-drives |
| MicroSolutions backpack 8000t tape drive |
| SyQuest EZ-135, EZ-230 & SparQ drives |
| Avatar Shark |
| Imation Superdisk LS-120 |
| Maxell Superdisk LS-120 |
| FreeCom Power CD |
| Hewlett-Packard 5GB and 8GB tape drives |
| Hewlett-Packard 7100 and 7200 CD-RW drives |
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| as well as most of the clone and no-name products on the market. |
| |
| To support such a wide range of devices, PARIDE, the parallel port IDE |
| subsystem, is actually structured in three parts. There is a base |
| paride module which provides a registry and some common methods for |
| accessing the parallel ports. The second component is a set of |
| high-level drivers for each of the different types of supported devices: |
| |
| pd IDE disk |
| pcd ATAPI CD-ROM |
| pf ATAPI disk |
| pt ATAPI tape |
| pg ATAPI generic |
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| (Currently, the pg driver is only used with CD-R drives). |
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| The high-level drivers function according to the relevant standards. |
| The third component of PARIDE is a set of low-level protocol drivers |
| for each of the parallel port IDE adapter chips. Thanks to the interest |
| and encouragement of Linux users from many parts of the world, |
| support is available for almost all known adapter protocols: |
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| aten ATEN EH-100 (HK) |
| bpck Microsolutions backpack (US) |
| comm DataStor (old-type) "commuter" adapter (TW) |
| dstr DataStor EP-2000 (TW) |
| epat Shuttle EPAT (UK) |
| epia Shuttle EPIA (UK) |
| fit2 FIT TD-2000 (US) |
| fit3 FIT TD-3000 (US) |
| friq Freecom IQ cable (DE) |
| frpw Freecom Power (DE) |
| kbic KingByte KBIC-951A and KBIC-971A (TW) |
| ktti KT Technology PHd adapter (SG) |
| on20 OnSpec 90c20 (US) |
| on26 OnSpec 90c26 (US) |
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| 2. Using the PARIDE subsystem |
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| While configuring the Linux kernel, you may choose either to build |
| the PARIDE drivers into your kernel, or to build them as modules. |
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| In either case, you will need to select "Parallel port IDE device support" |
| as well as at least one of the high-level drivers and at least one |
| of the parallel port communication protocols. If you do not know |
| what kind of parallel port adapter is used in your drive, you could |
| begin by checking the file names and any text files on your DOS |
| installation floppy. Alternatively, you can look at the markings on |
| the adapter chip itself. That's usually sufficient to identify the |
| correct device. |
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| You can actually select all the protocol modules, and allow the PARIDE |
| subsystem to try them all for you. |
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| For the "brand-name" products listed above, here are the protocol |
| and high-level drivers that you would use: |
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| Manufacturer Model Driver Protocol |
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| MicroSolutions CD-ROM pcd bpck |
| MicroSolutions PD drive pf bpck |
| MicroSolutions hard-drive pd bpck |
| MicroSolutions 8000t tape pt bpck |
| SyQuest EZ, SparQ pd epat |
| Imation Superdisk pf epat |
| Maxell Superdisk pf friq |
| Avatar Shark pd epat |
| FreeCom CD-ROM pcd frpw |
| Hewlett-Packard 5GB Tape pt epat |
| Hewlett-Packard 7200e (CD) pcd epat |
| Hewlett-Packard 7200e (CD-R) pg epat |
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| 2.1 Configuring built-in drivers |
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| We recommend that you get to know how the drivers work and how to |
| configure them as loadable modules, before attempting to compile a |
| kernel with the drivers built-in. |
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| If you built all of your PARIDE support directly into your kernel, |
| and you have just a single parallel port IDE device, your kernel should |
| locate it automatically for you. If you have more than one device, |
| you may need to give some command line options to your bootloader |
| (eg: LILO), how to do that is beyond the scope of this document. |
| |
| The high-level drivers accept a number of command line parameters, all |
| of which are documented in the source files in linux/drivers/block/paride. |
| By default, each driver will automatically try all parallel ports it |
| can find, and all protocol types that have been installed, until it finds |
| a parallel port IDE adapter. Once it finds one, the probe stops. So, |
| if you have more than one device, you will need to tell the drivers |
| how to identify them. This requires specifying the port address, the |
| protocol identification number and, for some devices, the drive's |
| chain ID. While your system is booting, a number of messages are |
| displayed on the console. Like all such messages, they can be |
| reviewed with the 'dmesg' command. Among those messages will be |
| some lines like: |
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| paride: bpck registered as protocol 0 |
| paride: epat registered as protocol 1 |
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| The numbers will always be the same until you build a new kernel with |
| different protocol selections. You should note these numbers as you |
| will need them to identify the devices. |
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| If you happen to be using a MicroSolutions backpack device, you will |
| also need to know the unit ID number for each drive. This is usually |
| the last two digits of the drive's serial number (but read MicroSolutions' |
| documentation about this). |
| |
| As an example, let's assume that you have a MicroSolutions PD/CD drive |
| with unit ID number 36 connected to the parallel port at 0x378, a SyQuest |
| EZ-135 connected to the chained port on the PD/CD drive and also an |
| Imation Superdisk connected to port 0x278. You could give the following |
| options on your boot command: |
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| pd.drive0=0x378,1 pf.drive0=0x278,1 pf.drive1=0x378,0,36 |
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| In the last option, pf.drive1 configures device /dev/pf1, the 0x378 |
| is the parallel port base address, the 0 is the protocol registration |
| number and 36 is the chain ID. |
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| Please note: while PARIDE will work both with and without the |
| PARPORT parallel port sharing system that is included by the |
| "Parallel port support" option, PARPORT must be included and enabled |
| if you want to use chains of devices on the same parallel port. |
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| 2.2 Loading and configuring PARIDE as modules |
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| It is much faster and simpler to get to understand the PARIDE drivers |
| if you use them as loadable kernel modules. |
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| Note 1: using these drivers with the "kerneld" automatic module loading |
| system is not recommended for beginners, and is not documented here. |
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| Note 2: if you build PARPORT support as a loadable module, PARIDE must |
| also be built as loadable modules, and PARPORT must be loaded before the |
| PARIDE modules. |
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| To use PARIDE, you must begin by |
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| insmod paride |
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| this loads a base module which provides a registry for the protocols, |
| among other tasks. |
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| Then, load as many of the protocol modules as you think you might need. |
| As you load each module, it will register the protocols that it supports, |
| and print a log message to your kernel log file and your console. For |
| example: |
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| # insmod epat |
| paride: epat registered as protocol 0 |
| # insmod kbic |
| paride: k951 registered as protocol 1 |
| paride: k971 registered as protocol 2 |
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| Finally, you can load high-level drivers for each kind of device that |
| you have connected. By default, each driver will autoprobe for a single |
| device, but you can support up to four similar devices by giving their |
| individual co-ordinates when you load the driver. |
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| For example, if you had two no-name CD-ROM drives both using the |
| KingByte KBIC-951A adapter, one on port 0x378 and the other on 0x3bc |
| you could give the following command: |
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| # insmod pcd drive0=0x378,1 drive1=0x3bc,1 |
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| For most adapters, giving a port address and protocol number is sufficient, |
| but check the source files in linux/drivers/block/paride for more |
| information. (Hopefully someone will write some man pages one day !). |
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| As another example, here's what happens when PARPORT is installed, and |
| a SyQuest EZ-135 is attached to port 0x378: |
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| # insmod paride |
| paride: version 1.0 installed |
| # insmod epat |
| paride: epat registered as protocol 0 |
| # insmod pd |
| pd: pd version 1.0, major 45, cluster 64, nice 0 |
| pda: Sharing parport1 at 0x378 |
| pda: epat 1.0, Shuttle EPAT chip c3 at 0x378, mode 5 (EPP-32), delay 1 |
| pda: SyQuest EZ135A, 262144 blocks [128M], (512/16/32), removable media |
| pda: pda1 |
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| Note that the last line is the output from the generic partition table |
| scanner - in this case it reports that it has found a disk with one partition. |
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| 2.3 Using a PARIDE device |
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| Once the drivers have been loaded, you can access PARIDE devices in the |
| same way as their traditional counterparts. You will probably need to |
| create the device "special files". Here is a simple script that you can |
| cut to a file and execute: |
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| #!/bin/bash |
| # |
| # mkd -- a script to create the device special files for the PARIDE subsystem |
| # |
| function mkdev { |
| mknod $1 $2 $3 $4 ; chmod 0660 $1 ; chown root:disk $1 |
| } |
| # |
| function pd { |
| D=$( printf \\$( printf "x%03x" $[ $1 + 97 ] ) ) |
| mkdev pd$D b 45 $[ $1 * 16 ] |
| for P in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 |
| do mkdev pd$D$P b 45 $[ $1 * 16 + $P ] |
| done |
| } |
| # |
| cd /dev |
| # |
| for u in 0 1 2 3 ; do pd $u ; done |
| for u in 0 1 2 3 ; do mkdev pcd$u b 46 $u ; done |
| for u in 0 1 2 3 ; do mkdev pf$u b 47 $u ; done |
| for u in 0 1 2 3 ; do mkdev pt$u c 96 $u ; done |
| for u in 0 1 2 3 ; do mkdev npt$u c 96 $[ $u + 128 ] ; done |
| for u in 0 1 2 3 ; do mkdev pg$u c 97 $u ; done |
| # |
| # end of mkd |
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| With the device files and drivers in place, you can access PARIDE devices |
| like any other Linux device. For example, to mount a CD-ROM in pcd0, use: |
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| mount /dev/pcd0 /cdrom |
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| If you have a fresh Avatar Shark cartridge, and the drive is pda, you |
| might do something like: |
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| fdisk /dev/pda -- make a new partition table with |
| partition 1 of type 83 |
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| mke2fs /dev/pda1 -- to build the file system |
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| mkdir /shark -- make a place to mount the disk |
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| mount /dev/pda1 /shark |
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| Devices like the Imation superdisk work in the same way, except that |
| they do not have a partition table. For example to make a 120MB |
| floppy that you could share with a DOS system: |
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| mkdosfs /dev/pf0 |
| mount /dev/pf0 /mnt |
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| 2.4 The pf driver |
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| The pf driver is intended for use with parallel port ATAPI disk |
| devices. The most common devices in this category are PD drives |
| and LS-120 drives. Traditionally, media for these devices are not |
| partitioned. Consequently, the pf driver does not support partitioned |
| media. This may be changed in a future version of the driver. |
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| 2.5 Using the pt driver |
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| The pt driver for parallel port ATAPI tape drives is a minimal driver. |
| It does not yet support many of the standard tape ioctl operations. |
| For best performance, a block size of 32KB should be used. You will |
| probably want to set the parallel port delay to 0, if you can. |
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| 2.6 Using the pg driver |
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| The pg driver can be used in conjunction with the cdrecord program |
| to create CD-ROMs. Please get cdrecord version 1.6.1 or later |
| from ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord/ . To record CD-R media |
| your parallel port should ideally be set to EPP mode, and the "port delay" |
| should be set to 0. With those settings it is possible to record at 2x |
| speed without any buffer underruns. If you cannot get the driver to work |
| in EPP mode, try to use "bidirectional" or "PS/2" mode and 1x speeds only. |
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| 3. Troubleshooting |
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| 3.1 Use EPP mode if you can |
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| The most common problems that people report with the PARIDE drivers |
| concern the parallel port CMOS settings. At this time, none of the |
| PARIDE protocol modules support ECP mode, or any ECP combination modes. |
| If you are able to do so, please set your parallel port into EPP mode |
| using your CMOS setup procedure. |
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| 3.2 Check the port delay |
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| Some parallel ports cannot reliably transfer data at full speed. To |
| offset the errors, the PARIDE protocol modules introduce a "port |
| delay" between each access to the i/o ports. Each protocol sets |
| a default value for this delay. In most cases, the user can override |
| the default and set it to 0 - resulting in somewhat higher transfer |
| rates. In some rare cases (especially with older 486 systems) the |
| default delays are not long enough. if you experience corrupt data |
| transfers, or unexpected failures, you may wish to increase the |
| port delay. The delay can be programmed using the "driveN" parameters |
| to each of the high-level drivers. Please see the notes above, or |
| read the comments at the beginning of the driver source files in |
| linux/drivers/block/paride. |
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| 3.3 Some drives need a printer reset |
| |
| There appear to be a number of "noname" external drives on the market |
| that do not always power up correctly. We have noticed this with some |
| drives based on OnSpec and older Freecom adapters. In these rare cases, |
| the adapter can often be reinitialised by issuing a "printer reset" on |
| the parallel port. As the reset operation is potentially disruptive in |
| multiple device environments, the PARIDE drivers will not do it |
| automatically. You can however, force a printer reset by doing: |
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| insmod lp reset=1 |
| rmmod lp |
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| If you have one of these marginal cases, you should probably build |
| your paride drivers as modules, and arrange to do the printer reset |
| before loading the PARIDE drivers. |
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| 3.4 Use the verbose option and dmesg if you need help |
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| While a lot of testing has gone into these drivers to make them work |
| as smoothly as possible, problems will arise. If you do have problems, |
| please check all the obvious things first: does the drive work in |
| DOS with the manufacturer's drivers ? If that doesn't yield any useful |
| clues, then please make sure that only one drive is hooked to your system, |
| and that either (a) PARPORT is enabled or (b) no other device driver |
| is using your parallel port (check in /proc/ioports). Then, load the |
| appropriate drivers (you can load several protocol modules if you want) |
| as in: |
| |
| # insmod paride |
| # insmod epat |
| # insmod bpck |
| # insmod kbic |
| ... |
| # insmod pd verbose=1 |
| |
| (using the correct driver for the type of device you have, of course). |
| The verbose=1 parameter will cause the drivers to log a trace of their |
| activity as they attempt to locate your drive. |
| |
| Use 'dmesg' to capture a log of all the PARIDE messages (any messages |
| beginning with paride:, a protocol module's name or a driver's name) and |
| include that with your bug report. You can submit a bug report in one |
| of two ways. Either send it directly to the author of the PARIDE suite, |
| by e-mail to grant@torque.net, or join the linux-parport mailing list |
| and post your report there. |
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| 3.5 For more information or help |
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| You can join the linux-parport mailing list by sending a mail message |
| to |
| linux-parport-request@torque.net |
| |
| with the single word |
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| subscribe |
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| in the body of the mail message (not in the subject line). Please be |
| sure that your mail program is correctly set up when you do this, as |
| the list manager is a robot that will subscribe you using the reply |
| address in your mail headers. REMOVE any anti-spam gimmicks you may |
| have in your mail headers, when sending mail to the list server. |
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| You might also find some useful information on the linux-parport |
| web pages (although they are not always up to date) at |
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| http://www.torque.net/parport/ |
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