pcmcia-howto

pcmcia source code

  +o  The pcmcia_core module has the cis_speed parameter for changing the
     memory speed used for accessing a card's Card Information Structure
     (CIS).  On some systems, increasing this parameter (i.e., slowing
     down card accesses) may fix card recognition problems.

  +o  Another pcmcia_core parameter, io_speed, can be used to slow down
     accesses to IO cards.  It may help in certain cases with systems
     that have out-of-spec PCMCIA bus timing.

  +o  This is not a timing issue, but if you have more than one ISA-to-
     PCMCIA controller in your system or extra sockets in a laptop
     docking station, the i82365 module should be loaded with the
     extra_sockets parameter set to 1.  This should not be necessary for
     detection of PCI-to-PCMCIA or PCI-to-CardBus bridges.

  Here are some timing settings for specific systems:

  +o  On the ARM Pentium-90 or Midwest Micro Soundbook Plus, use
     ``freq_bypass=1 cmd_time=8''.
  +o  On a Compaq Presario 1220, try ``setup_time=1''.

  +o  On a Midwest Micro Soundbook Elite, use ``cmd_time=12''.

  +o  On a Gateway Liberty, try ``cmd_time=16''.

  +o  On a Samsung SENS 810, use ``fast_pci=1''.

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  While almost all PCMCIA card readers and card docks work fine under
  Linux, some require special startup options because they do not behave
  exactly like laptop PCMCIA bridges.  PCI card readers, in particular,
  may handle interrupts differently.

  +o  The Linksys ProConnect PCMRDWR and Antec DataChute ISA card readers
     are ``ISA Plug and Play'' devices.  To use these, you must first
     activate them with the Linux isapnp tools.  See the man pages for
     pnpdump and isapnp for more information.

  +o  For Chase CardPORT and Altec ISA card readers using the Cirrus
     PD6722 ISA-to-PCMCIA bridge, the i82365 driver should be loaded
     with a ``has_ring=0'' parameter to prevent irq 15 conflicts.

  +o  For Elan P-series PCI card readers based on the Cirrus PD6729 PCI-
     to-PCMCIA bridge chip, the i82365 driver requires a ``irq_mode=1''
     parameter.

  +o  For the Sycard PCChost1200 host adapter, the i82365 driver requires
     a ``p2cclk=1'' parameter.

  +o  For the Alex Electronics PCICBI host adapter based on the TI 1221
     bridge, the i82365 driver requires ``p2cclk=1 irq_mode=0'' as well
     as PCMCIA driver release 3.1.23 or later.

  +o  With SCM Microsystems SBP series PCI card readers (which are also
     being distributed with Lucent WaveLAN IEEE cards), and for the
     Synchrotech PCM-CR-PC2IF and PCM-CR-PC2IR, it is necessary to
     specify ``irq_mode=0'' for the i82365 module, to force use of PCI
     interrupts.

  +o  For the ActionTec PC 750 card reader, and for the Antec Datachute
     PCI card reader, the i82365 driver requires a ``irq_list=0''
     parameter, to indicate that ISA interrupts are unavailable.

  +o  The PLX Technologies PCI9052 (also sold as the Linksys WDT11) is
     not a general purpose PCMCIA card reader at all: it is a PCI
     interface card for use with certain wireless adapters, that makes
     them look like ordinary PCI devices.  These devices are not
     supported.

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  Card Services should automatically avoid allocating IO ports and
  interrupts already in use by other standard devices.  It will also
  attempt to detect conflicts with unknown devices, but this is not
  completely reliable.  In some cases, you may need to explicitly
  exclude resources for a device in /etc/pcmcia/config.opts.

  Here are some resource settings for specific laptop types.  View this
  list with suspicion: it may give useful hints for solving problems,
  but it is inevitably out of date and certainly contains mistakes.
  Corrections and additions are welcome.
  +o  On the AMS SoundPro, exclude irq 10.

  +o  On some AMS TravelPro 5300 models, use memory 0xc8000-0xcffff.

  +o  On the BMX 486DX2-66, exclude irq 5, irq 9.

  +o  On the Chicony NB5, use memory 0xda000-0xdffff.

  +o  On the Compaq Presario 1020, exclude port 0x2f8-0x2ff, irq 3, irq
     5.

  +o  On the Dell Inspiron 7000, exclude irq 3, irq 5.

  +o  On the Dell Inspiron 8000, exclude port 0x800-0x8ff.

  +o  On the Fujitsu C series, exclude port 0x200-0x27f.

  +o  On the HP Omnibook 4000C, exclude port 0x300-0x30f.

  +o  On the HP Omnibook 4100, exclude port 0x220-0x22f.

  +o  On the IBM ThinkPad 380, and maybe the 385 and 600 series, exclude
     port 0x230-0x233, and irq 5.

  +o  On IBM ThinkPad 600 and 770 models with internal modems, exclude
     port 0x2f8-0x2ff.

  +o  On the IBM ThinkPad 600E and 770Z, change the high memory window to
     0x60000000-0x60ffffff.

  +o  On the Micron Millenia Transport, exclude irq 5, irq 9.

  +o  On the NEC Versa M, exclude irq 9, port 0x2e0-2ff.

  +o  On the NEC Versa P/75, exclude irq 5, irq 9.

  +o  On the NEC Versa S, exclude irq 9, irq 12.

  +o  On the NEC Versa 6000 series, exclude port 0x2f8-0x33f, irq 9, irq
     10.

  +o  On the NEC Versa SX, exclude port 0x300-0x31f.

  +o  On the ProStar 9200, Altima Virage, and Acquiline Hurricane
     DX4-100, exclude irq 5, port 0x330-0x35f.  Maybe use memory
     0xd8000-0xdffff.

  +o  On the Siemens Nixdorf SIMATIC PG 720C, use memory 0xc0000-0xcffff,
     port 0x300-0x3bf.

  +o  On the TI TravelMate 5000, use memory 0xd4000-0xdffff.

  +o  On the Toshiba Satellite 4030CDS, exclude irq 9.

  +o  On the Toshiba T4900 CT, exclude irq 5, port 0x2e0-0x2e8, port
     0x330-0x338.

  +o  On the Toshiba Tecra 8000, exclude irq 3, irq 5, irq 9.

  +o  On the Twinhead 5100, HP 4000, Sharp PC-8700 and PC-8900, exclude
     irq 9 (sound), irq 12.

  +o  On an MPC 800 Series, exclude irq 5, port 0x300-0x30f for the CD-
     ROM.

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  On PowerPC based PowerBook systems, the default system resources in
  /etc/pcmcia/config.opts file are no good at all.  Replace all the IO
  port and window definitions with something like:

       include port 0x100-0x4ff, port 0x1000-0x17ff
       include memory 0x80000000-0x80ffffff

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  This section is incomplete.  Corrections and additions are welcome.

  22..55..11..  DDeebbiiaann

  Debian uses a System V boot script arrangement.  The PCMCIA startup
  script is installed as /etc/init.d/pcmcia.  New packages use
  /etc/default/pcmcia for startup options; older versions used
  /etc/pcmcia.conf for this purpose.  Debian's syslog configuration will
  place kernel messages in /var/log/messages and cardmgr messages in
  /var/log/daemon.log.

  Debian distributes the PCMCIA system in two packages: the ``pcmcia-
  cs'' package contains cardmgr and other tools, man pages, and
  configuration scripts; and the ``pcmcia-modules'' package contains the
  kernel driver modules.

  Starting with 3.1.25, a clean PCMCIA install will identify Debian
  systems and create a special network.opts file that, in the absence of
  other network configuration settings, uses Debian's ifup and ifdown
  commands to configure a network card based on settings in
  /etc/network/interfaces.

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  These distributions use a System V boot script organization.  The
  PCMCIA startup script is installed as /etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia, and
  boot options are kept in /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia.  Beware that
  installing the Red Hat package may install a default boot option file
  that has PCMCIA disabled.  To enable PCMCIA, the ``PCMCIA'' variable
  should be set to ``yes''.  Red Hat's default syslogd configuration
  will record all interesting messages in /var/log/messages.

  Red Hat's PCMCIA package contains a replacement for the network setup
  script, /etc/pcmcia/network, which meshes with the Red Hat linuxconf
  configuration system.  This is convenient for the case where just one
  network adapter is used, with one set of network parameters, but does
  not have the full flexibility of the regular PCMCIA network script.
  Compiling and installing a clean PCMCIA source distribution will
  overwrite the network script, breaking the link to the Red Hat tools.
  If you prefer using the Red Hat tools, either use only Red Hat RPM's,
  or replace /etc/pcmcia/network.opts with the following:

  if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-$2 ] ; then
      start_fn () {
          . /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-$1
          if [ "$ONBOOT" = "yes" ] ; then /sbin/ifup $1 ; fi
      }
      stop_fn () {
          /sbin/ifdown $1
      }
  fi

  Starting with the 3.1.22 release, the PCMCIA installation script will
  automatically append a variant of this to the default network.opts
  file, so this problem should no longer be an issue.

  If you do use linuxconf (or netconf) to configure your network
  interface, leave the ``kernel module'', ``I/O port'', and ``irq''
  parameters blank.  Setting these parameters may interfere with proper
  operation of the PCMCIA subsystem.

  At boot time, when the Red Hat network subsystem starts up, it may say
  ``Delaying eth0 initialization'' and ``[FAILED]''.  This is actually
  not a failure: it means that this network interface will not be
  initialized until after the PCMCIA network device is configured.

  Red Hat bundles their slightly modified PCMCIA source distribution
  with their kernel sources, rather than as a separate source package.
  When preparing to build a new set of PCMCIA drivers, you will
  generally want to install Red Hat's kernel-source RPM (kernel-
  source-*.i386.rpm), and not the kernel SRPM (kernel-*.src.rpm).  The
  SRPM is tailored for building their kernel RPM files, which is not
  exactly what you want.  With Red Hat 7.0, the kernel-source RPM also
  includes a mis-configured PCMCIA source tree; if you want to use it,
  delete their PCMCIA config.out file and re-do "make config".

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  Slackware uses a BSD boot script arrangement.  The PCMCIA startup
  script is installed as /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia, and boot options are
  specified in rc.pcmcia itself.  The PCMCIA startup script is invoked
  from /etc/rc.d/rc.S.

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  SuSE uses a System V init script arrangement, with init scripts stored
  under /etc/init.d.  The PCMCIA startup script is installed as
  /etc/init.d/pcmcia, and startup options are kept in /etc/rc.config.
  Before release 7.0, init scripts were kept under /sbin/init.d.  In
  early SuSE releases (pre-5.3), the PCMCIA startup script was somewhat
  limited and did not allow PCMCIA startup variables to be overridden
  from the lilo boot prompt.

  To look up current PCMCIA issues in SuSE's support database, go to
  <http://sdb.suse.de/cgi-bin/sdbsearch_en.cgi?stichwort=PCMCIA>.

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  This section describes some of the most common failure modes for the
  PCMCIA subsystem.  Try to match your symptoms against the examples.
  This section only describes general failures that are not specific to
  a particular client driver or type of card.
  Before trying to diagnose a problem, you have to know where your
  system log is kept (see ``Notes about specific Linux distributions'').
  You should also be familiar with basic diagnostic tools like dmesg and
  lsmod.  Also, be aware that most driver components (including all the
  kernel modules) have their own individual man pages.

  In 3.1.15 and later releases, the debug-tools subdirectory of the
  PCMCIA source tree has a few scripts to help diagnose some of the most
  common configuration problems.  The test_setup script checks your
  PCMCIA installation for completeness.  The test_network and test_modem
  scripts will try to diagnose problems with PCMCIA network and modem
  cards.  These scripts can be particularly helpful if you are
  unfamiliar with Linux and are not sure how to approach a problem.

  Try to define your problem as narrowly as possible.  If you have
  several cards, try each card in isolation, and in different
  combinations.  Try cold Linux boots, versus warm boots from Windows.
  Compare booting with cards inserted, versus inserting cards after
  boot.  If you normally use your laptop docked, try it undocked.  And
  sometimes, two sockets will behave differently.