[lug] PCMCIA Troubleshooting

[Ed Hill]

Elyse Grasso wrote:

> Can someone point me at the best information for troubleshooting PCMCIA in 
> laptops? I'm using KRUD (RedHat) 7.2 with the latest kernel, upgraded from 
> various earlier versions of KRUD and RedHat.
> 
> Minor mystery: during boot, a message from cardmgr appears on the screen 
> complaining about line 8 of the ./config.opts file, but that message does not 
> show up in the boot.log file or the messages file. Where else could it be 
> going? (This message also appears on machines that were initally installed 
> clean from the October KRUD distribution. Did the file format change with the 
> 2.4 kernels and the opts file not get redone? Where could I find out about 
> this?) 
> 
> Big problem: I have a bunch of Inspiron 2500 laptops at work on which cards 
> that work on my personal laptop (an Inspiron 4000 that came with Linux 
> configured and installed by Dell)  are not configured. I think that PCMCIA is 
> having trouble identifying system resources that are safe to use. Is there 
> detailed documentation on how to do this (for 2.4.x based distributions) 
> available somewhere? I haven't found it by googling but may not be using the 
> right searches. There seems to be a nasty interaction with apmd involved 
> somehow, too. I think I'm going to be finding out way more about the guts of 
> both Linux the machines and Linux than I really hoped I'd need to know.


Hi Elyse,


The laptops I've worked with *recently* (mostly RedHat on ThinkPads) have
"just worked" with PCMCIA and CardBus devices.

But in the past, I've had trouble and got most of the info I needed from
other folks' setups as listed on Ken Harker's "linux on laptops" pages:

   http://www.linux-laptop.net/

You should probably start by reading the entries for the Inspiron models:

   http://www.linux-laptop.net/dell.html

to see what others have done.


If that doesn't produce a solution, then I'd delve into the documentation
at the pcmcia-cs site.  But be warned: Linux has *TWO* somewhat-separate
implimentations of the suite of PCMCIA drivers and the documentation is
old (often somewhat out-of-date).  One set of drivers is included within
recent stable kernels (2.4-series) and the other is the "older" separate
set of drivers maintained by David Hinds at:

   http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/
   http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/README-2.4

Hinds does a remarkable job of supporting cards and you can probably get 

help by searching the documentation and message boards on that site.

If you get really stuck, I might be able to help...


good luck,
Ed


-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
Post-Doctoral Researcher    |  Emails:   <ed at eh3.com>, <ehill at mines.edu>
Division of ESE             |  URL:      http://www.eh3.com
Colorado School of Mines    |  Phone:    303-273-3483
Golden, CO  80401           |  Fax:      303-273-3311