release-notes

linux-2.6.15.6

  this module, not zftape.
- sftape is kerneld save, unlike the original ftape.
- we keep the entire header segment now in memory, so no need to read
  it before updating the header segments. Additional memory
  consumption: 256 bytes. 

Notes for zftape:
- zftape has support for tapes with format code 6 now, which use a
  slightly different volume table format compared with other floppy
  tapes.
- new ioctls for zftape. Have a look at zftape/zftape.h
- The internal volume table representation has changed for zftape. Old
  cartridges are converted automatically.
- zftape no longer uses compression map segments, which have vanished
  from the QIC specs, but creates volume table entry that reserves
  enough space for the compression map. 
- zftape is kerneld save now.
- we keep the entire header segment now in memory, so no need to read
  it before updating the header segments. Additional memory
  consumption: 256 bytes. 

Notes for contrib/gnumt:
- modified mt from the GNU cpio package that supports all the new
  ioctls of zftape.
Notes for contrib/swapout:
- This contains the swapout.c program that was written by Kai
  Harrekilde-Pederson. I simply added a Makefile.

===== Release notes for ftape-2.10, 14/10/96 =====

The ftape maintainer has changed. 
Kai Harrekilde-Petersen <[e-mail]>
has resigned from maintaining ftape, and I,
Claus-Justus Heine <[e-mail]>,
have taken over.

- Added support for tapes with `format code 6', i.e. QIC-3020 tapes
  with more than 2^16 segments.
- merged changes made by Bas Laarhoven with ftape-2.09. Refer
  to his release notes below. I've included them into this
  file unchanged for your reference.
- disabled call stack back trace for now. This new feature
  introduced by the interim release 2.0.x still seems to
  be buggy.
- Tried to minimize differences between the ftape version
  to be included into the kernel source tree and the standalone
  module version.
- Reintroduced support for Linux-1.2.13. Please refer to the
  Install-guide. 

===== Release notes for ftape-2.09, 16/06/96 =====

There aren't any really big news in this release, mostly just that I
(the maintainer) have changed my email address (due to a new job).  My
new address is <[e-mail]>

- The CLK_48MHZ and FDC_82078SL options has gone (all 2Mbps cards seem
  to use a 48MHz oscillator anyway and I haven't heard of an 'SL
  chip out there).
- The S82078B has been `downgraded' to i82077AA compability.
- TESTING option revived.  Right now, it'll enable the (seriously broken)
  2Mbps code.  If you enable it, you'll experience a tape drive that's
  *really* out to lunch!
- Some (bold) changes in the init code.  Please notify me if they
  break things for you.

===== Release notes for ftape-2.08, 14/03/96 =====

If you correct a problem with ftape, please send your patch to
[e-mail] too.

- Updated to reflect that NR_MEM_LISTS is gone in 1.3.74
- Teac 700 added to list of known drives.
- The registered device name is now "ft" rather than "ftape".

===== Release notes for ftape-2.07a, 14/03/96 =====

Bugfixes by Marcin Dalecki <[e-mail]>:
- In the last release it just compiled against 1.3.70;
  now the params to request_irq() and free_irq are() are fixed, so it also 
  works in 1.3.73 :-)
- Support for modules is now correct for newer kernels.

===== Release notes for ftape-2.07, 04/03/96 =====


- ftape updated to compile against 1.3.70.
- Iomega 700 and Wangtek 3200 recognised.


===== Release notes for ftape-2.06b, 13/02/96 =====

Another simple bugfix version.

- Jumbo 700 recognised.
- Typo in vendors.h fixed.


===== Release notes for ftape-2.06a, 10/02/96 =====

This release is a simple bugfix version.

- Linux/SMP: ftape *should* work.
- FC-10/20: Only accepts IRQs 3-7, or 9.  If IRQ 9, properly tell the card
  to use IRQ 2.  Thanks to Greg Crider ([e-mail]) for finding and
  locating this bug and testing the patch.
- Insight drive recognised correctly again.
- Motor-on wakeup version of the Iomega 250 drive added


===== Release notes for ftape-2.06, 28/01/96 =====

Special thanks go to Neal Friedman and Steven Sorbom for their
help in producing and testing this release.

I have continued to clean up the code, with an eye towards inclusion
of ftape in Linus' official kernel (In fact, as I type this, I am
running on a kernel with ftape support statically linked).  I have
test-compiled ftape against my 1.2.13 tree without problems.
Hopefully, everything should be OK for the v1.2.x people.

WARNING! Alan Cox has mailed me that ftape does *NOT* work with
Linux/SMP.  If you try to run ftape under Linux/SMP, it will cause a
kernel deadlock (which is worse than a panic).

- QIC-3020/TR-3: 1Mbps support works.  Neal is capable of reading and
  writing data to a tape.  ftape will automatically detect the type of
  tape (e.g. TR-3 vs QIC-80) and move the fdc in and out of
  "perpendicular mode" as necessary.
- 2Mbps support is disabled by default, since it is not fully
  debugged.  If you are adventurous, remove -DFDC_82078SL in the
  Makefile and see what happens :-)
- fdc detection: silly bugs removed (Only 2Mbps fdcs were affected)
  and added detection of the National Semiconductors PC8744 fdc chip
  (used in the PC873xx "super-IO" chips).
- Removed warning about incompatible types when compiling with Linux
  1.2.x.
- README.PCI updated with info about the DELL Dimension XPS P90.
- Connor TST3200R added to detected drives.
- `swapout' utility added to distribution.  It will dirty 5Meg of
  memory, trying to swap out other programs.  Just say `make swapout'
  to build it.  ftape will do this automatically Real Soon Now (ie:
  when I have found out which kernel memory alloc function to call).


===== Release notes for ftape-2.05, 08/01/96 =====

- For v1.2.x Kernels, you must apply the patch linux-1.2/ksyms.patch to
  the kernel and rebuild it (it adds the __get_dma_pages symbol to
  ksyms.c).
- Included new asm-i386/io.h file from v1.3.x kernel series, to enable
  gcc v.2.7.[12] to compile v1.2.x kernels (linux-1.2/io.h).
- Module versions: If you wish to compile ftape as a versioned module,
  you must first compile your kernel with CONFIG_MODVERSIONS=y.
  Otherwise, you will get complaints that <linux/modversions.h> does not
  exist (if that happens, a `touch modversions.h' will help you out).
- CLK_48MHZ: new define in the Makefile (default: non-zero).  If you have
  a tape controller card that uses the i82078(-1) chip, but cannot get
  it to work with ftape, try set it to 0 (and please report this).
- QIC-3010/3020: Complete support is still missing, but will hopefully
  come soon.  Steven Sorbom has kindly provided me with hints about
  this.  Writing of QIC-3020 tapes definitely does NOT work (do not try
  it! - the drive will not be in "perpendicular mode" and this will ruin
  the formatting info on the tape).
- ftape_num_buffers is out of fashion: use NR_BUFFERS instead (and
  recompile if you want to change it :-).


===== Release notes for ftape-2.04, 01/01/96 =====

This version by Kai Harrekilde-Petersen <[e-mail]>

- ALERT! Support for Kernels earlier then v1.1.85 is about to go away.
  I intend to clean up some of the code (getting rid of an annoyingly
  large numbers of #ifdef mostly), which means that support for
  pre-1.1.85 kernels must go as well.
- NR_FTAPE_BUFFERS is gone; You can instead select the number of dma
  buffers by saying `insmod ftape.o ftape_num_buffer=<n>' instead.
- Configure script gone.  ftape will now automagically determine your
  kernel version by /usr/include/linux/version.h instead.
- CONFIG_MODVERSIONS now work.  All combinations of versioned /
  unversioned kernel and ftape module works (at least with my 1.3.52
  kernel).
- If you have problems with inserting ftape into an old (1.2.x)
  kernel (e.g. insmod says "1.2.8 does not match 1.2.8), recompile
  your modules utilities with your new compiler.
- Reveal TB1400 drive added to vendors.h
- Support for the i82078-1 (2Mbps) chip is coming along.  The
  biggest problem is that I don't have such a card, which makes
  testing / debugging somewhat problematic.  The second biggest
  problem is that I do not have the QIC-3010/3020 standards either.
  Status right now is that the chip is detected, and it should be
  possible to put it into 2Mbps mode.  However, I do not know what
  "extras" are needed to complete the support.  Although putting the
  i82078 into 1Mbps mode ought to work out of the box, it doesn't
  (right now, ftape complains about id am errors).


===== Release notes for ftape-2.04beta5, 29/12/95 =====

Bas offline linux-tape
----------------------
For reasons only known to the majordomo mail list processor, Bas was
kicked off the linux-tape list sometime during the summer.  Being
overworked at his for-pay job, he didn't notice it much.  Instead I
(Kai, [e-mail]) has worked on ftape to produce the 2.04(beta)
version.

zftape
------
Note that there exists a much improved version of ftape, written by
Claus-Justus Heine <[e-mail]> which is named
zftape, which conforms to the QIC-80 specs on how to mark backups, and
is capable of doing automatic compression.  However, zftape makes
substantial changes to ftape, and I (Kai) have therefore declined to
integrate zftape into ftape.  Hopefully, this will happen soon.

CONFIG_QIC117 removed from the kernel
-------------------------------------
The biggest change of all is that ftape now will allocate its dma
buffers when it is inserted.  The means that the CONFIG_QIC117 option
has disappeared from the Linux kernel as of v1.3.34.  If you have an
earlier kernel, simply answer 'no' to the question will do the trick
(if you get complains about __get_free_pages() missing, contact the
linux-tape mailing list).

Note that ftape-2.04beta will work equally well on kernels with and
without `ftape support'.  The only catch is, that you will waste
around 96-128Kb of precious DMA'able memory on a box that has ftape
support compiled in.

Now for the real changes:

- FC-20 can now use DMA channels 1, 2, and 3. Thanks to Daniel
  Cohen, [e-mail].
- ftape no longer requires a (gigantic) 96Kb buffer to be statically
  allocated by the kernel.
- Added new Iomega drive (8882) to vendors.h
- -fno-strength-reduce added to Makefile, since GCC is broken.
- i82078-1 (2Mbps) FDC support started.


===== Release notes for ftape-2.03b, 27/05/95 =====

- Prevented verify_area to return error if called with zero length.
- Fixed a bug in flush_buffers that caused too much padding to be
  written when a final segment had bad sectors.
- Increased maximum fast-seek overshoot value from 5 to 10 segments.
- Breaking loop after 5 retries when positioning fails.
- Fixed wrong calculation of tape length for QIC-3010 and QIC-3020
  tapes (densities were swapped).
- Fixed wrong calculation of overshoot on seek_forward: Wrong sign
  of error.
- Suppress (false) error message due to new tape loaded.
- Added two new CMS drives (11c3 and 11c5) to vendors.h.


===== Release notes for ftape-2.03a, 09/05/95 =====

- Fixed display of old error (even if already cleared) in ftape_open.
- Improved tape length detection, ioctls would fail for 425 ft tapes.
  Until the tape length is calculated with data from the header
  segment, we'll use worst-case values.
- Clear eof_mark after rewinding ioctls.
- Fixed wrong version message (2.03 had 2.02g id).
- Fixed bug that caused the fdc to be reset very frequently.
  This shouldn't affect normal operation but the timing of the
  report routines has changed again and that may cause problems.
  We'll just have to find out....
- Implemented correct write precompensation setting for QIC-3010/3020.
- Cleaned up fdc_interrupt_wait routine. Hope it still works :-)
- Finally removed (already disabled) special eof mark handling for
  gnu tar.
- Changed order of get_dma_residue and disable_dma in fdc-isr.c
  because the current order would fail on at least one system.
  We're back to the original order again, hope (and expect) this
  doesn't break any other system.


===== Release notes for ftape-2.03, 07/05/95 =====

(Changes refer to the first ftape-2.02 release)

Support for wide and extended length tapes
------------------------------------------
The Conner TSM 420 and 850 drives are reported to be working.
I haven't received any reports about other brands; the TSM 420
and 850 seem to be the most widely used wide drives.
Extended length tapes (425 ft) with normal QIC-80 drives
are operating too (At least I've had no reports stating otherwise).
_Not_ yet completely supported (although they may work) are
QIC-3020 drives and 2 Mbps floppy disk controllers won't work at
the highest speed.
If someone is kind enough to send me one of these, I'll include
support for it too ;-)

Easier configuration
--------------------
Problems due to wrong settings in the Makefile are prevented
by using a configuration script that sets the necessary (kernel
version dependent) compile time options.
This kernel version is now determined from the sources found
at /usr/src/linux, or if not found, the old way using
/proc/version.
Versioned modules will be used automatically when supported
by- and configured in- the kernel.
Note that the current modules code (1.1.87) is still broken
and _needs_ the fix included in the insmod directory.
Please don't send me any more Oops reports caused by insmod :-(

Reduced module size
-------------------
The standard module size is much reduced and some compile time
options can even reduce it further. (I don't recommend this
for normal use but it can be handy for rescue diskettes)

Option:           Approx. module size:

<standard>             150 Kb
NO_TRACE               125 Kb
NO_TRACE_AT_ALL         67 Kb