From: drew@romeo.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt) Subject: Re: Linux SCSI support Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 23:25:38 GMT
In article <1992Apr10.223301.24673@athena.mit.edu> alsaggaf@ERL.MIT.EDU (M. Saggaf) writes:
>Is there any way Linux can work with a SCSI Future Domain 1670 host
>adapter? I'm a new user of Linux. Version .95a could not recognize my
>hard drive. I also have an RLL drive connected to an Adaptec 8-bit
People are working on a lowlevel driver for the 16 bit Future domain
boards. However, I'm not sure what the timeframe is on this, mail
out on the SCSI mailing list to find out who and the details.
>(XT) controller (in my 386 computer). Version .95a failed to recognize
>that one as well. Is there any way I can get Linux to work with any of
>these? Thanks.
>
The XT disk controllers are physically different from the AT disk
controllers. This doesn't matter when you're going through BIOS
and it looks all the same, but under a real operating system,
each piece of hardware must be dealt with individually at the
register level.
Either controller could be supported with an appropriate driver -
but since you can find an AT disk controller for ~$20, pulled
from equipment for upgrades, a driver for the XT controller
wouldn't be worth your time and effort.
As far as the SCSI host - the generic SCSI package sticks most of
the common code in one place, leaving relatively little for you
to implement in your driver at the lowest level. Basically, you're
concerned with getting data to/from the SCSI host- translation from
block device commands to SCSI, timeouts, error handling, etc are all handled
higher up the driver stack. You also have to provide an abort function,
SCSI bus reset function, probe, and info function.
Like I said, people are working on this, but if you have anything
to contribute, feel free to join the SCSI mailing list at
linux-scsi-request@headrest.woz.colorado.edu
Adaptec, Seagate, and Ultrstor lowlevel drivers have been
incorporated into the generic package, which is available from
headrest.woz.colorado.edu
under
/pub/linux/scsi.95c+.tar.Z