SPONSORED LINKS
On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Paul Rubin wrote: > I've had rotten luck with the Qlogic scsi card under Linux. > It works fine under DOS and Windows on my old Toshiba T4600 and > on my current Thinkpad 755cx, but on both of those machines > it is totally flaky under Linux (e.g. cd-roms will stop > reading after a few seconds). However, it works ok under Linux > in my housemate's Toshiba Libretto 50ct (Japanese version). > Maybe there is some timing problem in the Linux driver or > something like that. Anyway, if anyone wants to buy it, > it's available. There was indeed a bug in the Linux QLogic drivers that caused problems on some machines. It's pretty obscure - I found out about it via DejaNews by pure chance. I'll see if I can dig up what it was and what the fix was (changing a couple characters and recompiling). > Re portable cd's, Fry's Electronics sells a nice looking Sony 6x > unit which comes with a genuine Adaptec 1460 pcmcia adapter for $299. > I'm tempted to buy one. I dunno if Sony has changed their drive, but when they first started using the Adaptec PCMCIA SCSI card, Sony put a nonstandard interface on their drive and manufactured their own cable to work with the card and drive. If the interface on the card is the same, Adaptec will sell you a real SCSI-1 or SCSI-2 cable, but it'll probably cost $30-$40. If you buy just the Adaptec card, it comes with a SCSI-2 cable, plus a certificate to get a SCSI-1 (50-pin centronics or 25-pin Mac) cable for free. This may be cheaper than getting the Adaptec with the Sony drive. > My housemate (with the Libretto) got a Japanese-market Panasonic 10x > unit for also around $300, but it came with some non-Linux-supported > pcmcia card. He uses it with an Adaptec card that he got separately. The KXL-D740 4x Panasonic CDROM was (as of March) the last Panasonic CDROM drive that used a QLogic card compatible with Linux. I fiddled with the 745 (a 740 with built-in speakers), and the 8x model (748?). The 745 uses a new revision of the QLogic card which is incompatible with Linux. The 8x model uses a new QLogic card which David Hinds (author of the Linux PCMCIA drivers) said would "probably never work with Linux." My guess is QLogic isn't giving out the info needed to write drivers anymore. -- John H. Kim kim@mak.com