Linux-kernel mailing list archive 1999-22,: Re: 2.3 wish: integrate pcmcia into mainstream kernel

# Re: 2.3 wish: integrate pcmcia into mainstream kernel

Justin C. Darby (windex@busprod.com)
Thu, 3 Jun 1999 02:55:49 -0500 (CDT)

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Greets Mr. Torvalds, I'm not trying to question your authority by any
means, I well respect your (and the countless others) work, but this
thought occured to me, my apologies if its not completly clear, its 3am. :)

I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet, as I just subscribed to
the list today after downloading 2.3.5, and couldn't find it in the
archives over the last couple of days.

The only reason I'm saying anything in leiu of this topic is because I
feel that even though companies like RedHat, etc, have made a Laptop
installable linux with use of the pcmcia services, if kernel support was
implemented, it's still only a toggable setup, and it opens up the Linux
kernel to another level of market ability (I know those are fairly evil
words, but try to look from the standpoint of a CEO of a large company,
he's going to want all his machines running the same OS). The one major
thing that Linux is still striving to acheive is the workstation, projects
such as KDE, GIMP, etc, go a long way. However, a solid method for
portable machines couldn't hurt anything, I hear alot of talk about using
the initrd image to load modules in this conversation, but if the package
is intergrated into the kernel, why not build it in the kernel, and avoid
the module setup all together? It might make for a bigger kernel, but
you've got 1.44mb to work with, and if it can recongize the pcmcia floppy
or cdrom like that, you would be able to load the initrd image off the
pcmcia media.

If the kernel could build in PCMCIA, some sort of auto probing function,
what not else, to load hardware drivers, it would simply be a matter of
creating another boot disk with rawrite/dd, and using it depending on what
kind of support you needed, which in some 'special' cases you already have
to do, unfortunatley. Linux 2.2.x+ have some ammount of PnP support, if
its not substancial to suit the needs of the PCMCIA services, isin't that
what devel kernels are for is to test new features/concepts?

I may be way, way, way off ground, and I'm not entirely sure how things
work in their current state, dust's been building up on my code hacking
hat, it's just an idea.

Justin C. Darby
BPS Internet - Tulsa, OK
windex@busprod.com

On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Linus Torvalds wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 3 Jun 1999, Rogier Wolff wrote:
> >
> > Linus, next time you install a laptop, may I suggest that you try SuSE?
> > I didn't know Red Hat did it that bad.
>
> Umm. SuSE was actually what I used. I have SuSE on all my home machines,
> and Red Hat at work. I want to give them both a fair test. I'd try out the
> other distributions too, but I'm just too lazy.
>
> > On SuSE you just activate the "hardware drivers -> pcmcia" menuitem
> > and it beeps "CDROM found" at you.
>
> Except when it doesn't.
>
> Basically PCMCIA install on SuSE only works if you use the floppy install.
> And both SuSE and Red Hat do the same thing. The PCMCIA tools are big
> enough that they don't reasonably make it into a normal ramdisk.
>
> Which is fine if the floppy is a fixed floppy. Rather than a USB or a
> PCMCIA floppy.
>
> > SuSE 6.1 runs on 2.2 kernels (install too!), which seems to be
> > incompatible with pcmcia some way, so your "testing is not as
> > thorough" argument is valid..... 6.0 works just fine!
>
> I actually have done both 6.1 and 6.0. My first install was 6.0, and
> you're right, under 6.0 I didn't get the "machine hangs completely when
> PCMCIA is enabled while the CD-ROM is in use" problem.
>
> But both 6.0 and 6.1 _worked_. But the only way to get them to work on a
> machine that has a USB or a PCMCIA floppy is to hardcode the CD-ROM
> information, so that you see the CD even without PCMCIA support. See the
> original email on details.
>
> Once that is done, the result works fine. But trust me, getting it
> installed is not for a first-time user. _I_ had to hunt a lot for
> documentation. And I'm supposed to know my way around the system.
>
> Another knowledgeable Linux user who wasn't quite as knowledgeable as I am
> fixed it another way: he disassembled the machine, removed the harddisk,
> did the install on another machine, and re-assembled the portable. Exactly
> because neither SuSE nor Red Hat will install on a machine with PCMCIA but
> no available floppy by default.
>
> But have you ever tried to disassemble and re-assemble a modern laptop? It
> easily takes _hours_, and you run a noticeable risk of the keyboard not
> working when you get it re-assembled. Not for the faint of heart, in
> short.
>
> And NOT exactly something that would endear Linux to even competent users.
> In fact, it's completely unacceptable behaviour.
>
> And no, a network install doesn't work either. The network card is
> (surprise surprise) behind the cardbus bridge. MAYBE I could have set up a
> ppp install over the serial line (the machine I did this on is not one of
> the winmodem ones), although I have no clue whether anybody supports that,
> and quite frankly I don't ever want to find out.
>
> Sure, maybe there's a third and even better way of installing Linux on one
> of these things. I couldn't come up with one. I'd love to hear how you'd
> do it - any tricks are acceptable, even recompiling a special kernel on
> another machine and booting from a BIOS-only floppy. Burning your own
> custom installation CD-ROM with a custom initrd etc is _not_ an acceptable
> solution, I'm afraid.
>
> Oh. I guess I could have re-formatted the harddrive, re-partitioned,
> re-installed Windows on the machine, copied over the CD under Windows onto
> the DOS partition, booted linux, and installed Linux from a local
> harddisk. Convenient? Not exactly. I wouldn't even have known how to
> re-install Windows on it, but I guess I could have found somebody with
> that kind of expertise.
>
> And the thing is, that every new laptop I see I can also see having the
> exact same problem. And I do NOT want to go through that the next time I
> install. I doubt anybody else wants to, either.
>
> Linus
>
>
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