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The Mandrake database is woefully out of date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

(_)=='=~