@(#)README 1.11 94/09/06 jda AHA274x/284x INTERIM DRIVER *** THIS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED PRE-ALPHA SOFTWARE. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK *** BACKGROUND & LIMITATIONS For various reasons, we ended up with one of these cards under the impression that support was soon forthcoming. In mid-May, I asked Scott Ferris (the official person who's supposed to be writing this driver) what documentation he used, _finally_ got it from Adaptec, and started writing this driver. It is now at what I would consider a usable state. I've already started running our news server using this driver - if it is stable (and it appears to be so far), then my development platform is going into service, meaning I will unfortunately be able to provide only minimal support. Note that Scott is still developing his driver, and when his is stable it will supercede this one (hence the name "interim"). To help eliminate confusion, this driver will officially remain at a "pre-alpha" level. The latest version can be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.cpsc.ucalgary.ca in /pub/systems/linux/aha274x. It supports both EISA 274x and VL-bus 284x, either single or twin-bus cards (but not the second SCSI bus of twin cards - see aha274x.c), and supports disconnection, synchronous SCSI, and scatter-gather. Unlike previous versions, abort() and reset() are now implemented, and both hosts.c and aha274x.c should give a clean compile. Code is now present to detect parity errors, but has not been tested. I wrote this using a 1.0.9 kernel. Unfortunately, I'm getting tired of #ifdef'ing everything to handle two or three different evolutionary steps in the SCSI kernel code, so I've upgraded my system to 1.1.49, and will only leave in code to support versions from about 1.1.45 onward. Sorry if that means kernel upgrades for a lot of you. If someone wants to work out an "old kernel" patch based on stuff I've done in the previous drivers, I'd be happy to include the patchfile in the distribution. Thanks to patches supplied by Mark Olson <molson@tricord.com>, this driver will now work with the 284x series (the VL-bus version of this card). The 294x (PCI-bus) is still unsupported, but I'm willing to incorporate patches if anyone can supply them. Under protest, this driver is subject to the GPL - see the file COPYING for details. Thanks to the following people for bug fixes/code improvements (also thanks to the people who have sent me feedback): "David F. Carlson" <dave@ee.rochester.edu> Jimen Ching <jiching@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu> Darcy Grant <darcy@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> Mark Olson <molson@tricord.com> map@europa.ecn.uoknor.edu (Michael A. Parker) Thomas Scheunemann <thomas@dagobert.uni-duisburg.de> Special thanks to Drew Eckhardt <drew@kinglear.cs.Colorado.EDU> for fielding my questions about synchronous negotiation. The new improved installation instructions are based on some sent to me by smoe0024@rz.uni-hildesheim.de (Steffen Moeller). INSTALLATION 0. Make sure that the card's BIOS is enabled or this WILL NOT WORK. This is because the EISA configuration information appears to be only accessible through a BIOS call - I've located the information on my machine via a hack, but I don't think it's portable. I've made several requests for EISA technical information on the net without success.. so for the time being it's safer to have the aha274x's BIOS load all the information for me. Also, it performs a lot of self tests of the card which I'm not keen on duplicating. If you're using a 284x, enable the BIOS or the card won't be detected. 1. Unpack the files. If you got this from ftp.cpsc.ucalgary.ca, this will look like: # cd /tmp # tar xzvf aha274x-pre-alpha.tar.gz 2. Move required files to their destination in the kernel source: # mv aha274x* /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi 3. cd to kernel sources: # cd /usr/src/linux 4. Edit config.in. This will be either be simply config.in, or arch/i386/config.in - if you aren't prompted for 274x/284x support when you "make config" below, you edited the wrong one :-) Find the line with AHA1740 and add below: bool 'Adaptec AHA274X/284X support' CONFIG_SCSI_AHA274X y 5. cd to driver sources: # cd drivers/scsi 6. Find the paragraph dealing with AHA1740 in Makefile and add these lines below: ifdef CONFIG_SCSI_AHA274X SCSI_OBJS := $(SCSI_OBJS) aha274x.o SCSI_SRCS := $(SCSI_SRCS) aha274x.c endif 7. Edit hosts.c and find the first occurance of AHA1740, and add these lines below: #ifdef CONFIG_SCSI_AHA274X #include "aha274x.h" #endif 8. Find AHA1740 in hosts.c again and put the following lines below: #ifdef CONFIG_SCSI_AHA274X AHA274X, #endif 9. cd back to /usr/src/linux # cd ../.. 10. Configure the kernel - choose the options which reflect your hardware, plus the 274x/284x support: # make config 11. Build new dependencies for building the kernel: # make depend ; make clean 12. Compile the kernel. You should not get *any* warnings when compiling any of the driver code - if you do, that may indicate something untoward happening. # make [ The author of these instructions suggested using `make zDisk' instead to make a bootdisk - I think you have to leave a blank formatted disk in the floppy drive if you're going to do this. I can't even find it in the Makefile for 1.1.49. In any case, you'll need to get the kernel so that it boots somehow. ] 13. BACK UP YOUR KERNEL AND DATA. I'm not kidding. 14. Reboot using the new kernel. 15. Test it and send your comments/patches/&c to "aycock@cpsc.ucalgary.ca"; please consider sending me mail even if you have no problems, so I know if someone else is using this successfully. Please send a copy of 284x-related mail to "molson@tricord.com" too. When sending bug reports, please include a description of your hardware, the release number of the driver you're running (if known), and as accurate a facsimilie of any error message you're mailing about. The SCSI-HOWTO also has instructions on how to install device drivers. :ja