banjo

I will try to find out how to do this and then post it to this group. I just had some success installing a flash card reader, and it seems a shame not to make that information available to others. I spent considerable time researching it to find out which would work and which would not....... and I even got stuck with PNY device that works only on Windoze. The Mandrake database is woefully out of date in a lot of areas.

Does anybody here know how to add hardware to the Mandrake Hardware Database? I would like to share my successes and failures on that site as well. Thanks in advance

I belive that a similar thing happened to me with the /mnt/memory_card file. But I am not sure because I was not watching. Being an old Unix hack, I had the screen covered with terminal windows when I did the install, and I did not notice any icons appearing on the desktop. (Desktop, schmesktop..... real programmers don't use a mouse.... !!! :wink: ) By the time I had edited /etc/fstab, I had four icons on the desktop, and I was not sure where they came from. I had /mnt/flasha - created by me /mnt/flashb - created by me /mnt/memory_card - magic /mnt/memory_card2 - magic The last two also appeared magically in my /etc/fstab file, so the system had somehow edited my /etc/fstab .... which I do not like (being an old Unix hack). Anyway, in my ignorance I got rid of the magic mount points and now I have only my own showing up on the screen. They work fine so all is well :D I did save a backup with those mountpoints in it, so I may go back later and check out what they did to me. So, folks, if you try this at home, just plug in the device and then watch the screen to see if the magic happens. If so, check out the /etc/fstab to see what it did to you. You might have to log out and log back in to see the icons, I don't know. Also, whenever you edit the /etc/fstab ..... make a backup copy just in case. I have logged my success with the omniflash, and my failure with the PNY reader, on http://www.linux-usb.org/ Does anybody know how to add devices to the Mandrake hardware database?

I have an Olympus digital camera which has only a serial interface on it. My only serial port is in use by my modem. So, I bought a card reader to get the images off of the flash card. It took me a while to get this working, so I thought that I would share the information with the group. I have Mandrake 9.1 installed on my system. For my first attempt, I bought a PNY reader, but I never got that one to work. The device identifies itself as P: Vendor=058f ProdID=9350 Rev= 1.00 S: Manufacturer=Alcor S: Product=Mass Storage Device It would not work with the usb-storage driver, and no scsi disk was created in /dev. After I dug deep enough on the PNY web site, I finally found a statement to the effect that it "does not work with Linux". Works OK on Windoze. I gave up on it. Then, I bought and installed the Omniflash Uno SM SmartMedia card reader. It has the Penguin on the box. This install went very smoothly. The Uno SM product is described on the web site http://www.omniflashproducts.com/ It was not easy to find a vendor for the reader, but I finally found it at http://www.compuapps.com/ I put the SmartMedia card into the reader, and then I plugged the reader into the USB port. At that point, the red LED on the reader glowed dimly for a few seconds, then it went out and finally came on brightly. At that point, the USB system had recognized the device and loaded usb-storage as the driver. The system had also created the device special file /dev/sda1. All I had to do after that was to mount the the special device on a mount point, and the contents of the SmartMedia card were available. Here is how to install it for mounting. Make a mount point for mounting the scsi disk % su root % cd /mnt % mkdir flasha % chmod 777 flasha Then, add the following line to /etc/fstab /dev/sda1 /mnt/flasha vfat noauto,user 0 0 "vfat" is the file system type on the card "noauto" keeps it from being mounted at boot time "user" allows any user to mount the device. Now, when I log in, a Device Icon shows up on my KDE desktop showing "/dev/sda1 not mounted". I did not have to create the icon, it just showed up on the desktop the next time I logged in. I guess KDE is reading /etc/fstab. To use the reader I do the following: 1). Put the card into the reader 2). Plug the reader into the USB port 3). Wait for the light to glow brightly 4). Right click the device icon to get a menu 5). Choose Mount or Open (which also mounts) 6). Copy the images off of the card 7). Close the Konqueror (it won't unmount otherwise) 8). Right click the device icon to get a menu 9). Choose Unmount 10). Unplug the reader 11). Remove the card and put it back into the camera. IMPORTANT DO NOT FORGET TO UNMOUNT THE CARD BEFORE UNPLUGGING. IT IS POSSIBLE TO CORRUPT THE CARD CONTENTS IF IT IS REMOVED WHILE MOUNTED. Here are some details which you might be interested in. Below is the spew from the system in /var/log/messages when I plugged the card reader into the USB port. You should see something like this in your messages file if all the right pieces are in place for this device. -------------- begin spew ---------------------- Jul 25 16:05:47 localhost kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:1d.2-1, assigned address 2 Jul 25 16:05:47 localhost kernel: usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x55aa/0xb00c) is not claimed by any active driver. Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usb-storage for USB product 55aa/b00c/103 Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost kernel: Initializing USB Mass Storage driver... Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost kernel: usb.c: registered new driver usb-storage Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost kernel: usb-uhci.c: interrupt, status 3, frame# 216 Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost kernel: scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost kernel: Vendor: Model: Rev: Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost kernel: USB Mass Storage support registered. Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Module setup usb-storage for USB product 55aa/b00c/103 Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost /etc/hotplug/usb/usb-storage: Load scsimon Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost /etc/hotplug/usb/usb-storage: loading ... scsimon Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost /etc/hotplug/scsi.agent: sr_mod allready loaded Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost /etc/hotplug/scsi.agent: loading ... sd_mod Jul 25 16:05:51 localhost kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0 Jul 25 16:05:53 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 16000 512-byte hdwr sectors (8 MB) Jul 25 16:05:53 localhost kernel: sda: Write Protect is off Jul 25 16:05:53 localhost kernel: /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 -------------- end spew ---------------------- I also purchased at the same time the Omniflash reader for the MemoryStick. That device also went in smoothly, and it created the device /dev/sdb1. I added the line /dev/sdb1 /mnt/flashb vfat noauto,user 0 0 to /etc/fstab for the mount point, and that device also shows up on my desktop. The reader is identified as 0x55aa:b00b, as shown below. Jul 26 21:13:01 localhost /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usb-storage for USB product 55aa/b00b/600 Jul 26 21:13:01 localhost /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Module setup usb-storage for USB product 55aa/b00b/600

I have a new Mandrake 9.1 installation on an Intel D845PESV motherboard. This board has the embedded sound in the 845 chipset. Our sound works great some of the time and is silent at other times. This seems to be random, and reboots and logins do not fix it. Sometimes our Quake3 game tells us that the device /dev/dsp (which is a symlink to /dev/sound/dsp) is busy and it then runs silently. Sometimes it works OK and we get sound with the game. I have tried killing the artsd to see if that will free up the device, but it does not help. I have also tried running the app using artsdsp program to vector the sound through the mixer, but the program simply tells us "Your sound card cannot do this." Does anybody know what is going on with the sound as it is played on the 845 chipset? Also, if the answer is "Get a sound card", can anybody recommend a card that is known to work on Mandrake 9.1. Thanks in advance, Banjo (_)=='=~