i have no experience getting usb devices to work in linux. im running redhat9. i plugged in my sony drx-500ul external usb dvd writer... and this is what "dmesg |grep usb" says:

usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xf8849000, IRQ 3
usb-ohci.c: usb-00:02.0, PCI device 10de:0067 (nVidia Corporation)
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xf884b000, IRQ 5
usb-ohci.c: usb-00:02.1, PCI device 10de:0067 (nVidia Corporation)
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
usb.c: USB device not accepting new address=2 (error=-71)
usb.c: USB device not accepting new address=3 (error=-71)


any ideas as to what i should do?

OK... first of all, let we warn you about the device you have:

It's new technology. As much as we love linux, Sony doesn't provide drivers for the drive you have.

However, it should work just fine with CDR's. You can get it to work with DVD as well, but take my instructions with a grain of salt. I'm assuming sometime in a few months you'll have much better support for your hardware - but honestly, there's not a lot of DVD burning choices out there as of the time of this writing.

First of all, from the message you posted, you installed the right drivers, but you need to send your whole dmesg response. Also, plug in your drive with the computer on a few times before doing so.

What your dmesg log says is that usbdevfs, the module that runs USB device filesystems, has been loaded. I assume you want USB 2.0 to be running right.. so you also need your USB2.0 turned on through the kernel options (if you don't understand kernel options and how to load modules - read up on it - it's 80% of getting your new hardware running on linux).

So your message below is saying that your USB device isn't accepting your CD-Drive:

usb.c: USB device not accepting new address=2 (error=-71)
usb.c: USB device not accepting new address=3 (error=-71)

Honestly, I think this is because you may have it plugged into your usb 2.0 ports and your usb 2.0 port is not properly compiled in your kernal options.

Once you "make menuconfig" on your kernel options, go to the spot that says " EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) support (EXPERIMENTAL)" and compile it as a module (M). Also, you need to have scsi support enabled, scsi emulation all enabled (SCSI support, SCSI disk support, and SCSI CD-ROM support. I also do "Probe all LUNs on each SCSI device" and "Verbose SCSI error reporting"). Then, after you select the option, save the configuration, type:

make dep && make modules modules_install

Then, type:

modprobe ehci-hcd (and all scsi module names as well)

Then, plug in your DVD drive. It should be hooked up.

Next, the only app I've seen available for DVD burning is XCDroast. You can only use it for non-profit or personal use, but need to do all kinds of stuff to get it to run.

I've only gotten CD burning to work - and it works great. I'm having trouble getting DVD+R to burn but it seems DVD-R is reported to work better.

Finally, vobcopy is the program you want to use to copy personal DVDs for back up, there's also a lot of programs made to rip dvds like dvd::rip, acidcopy, and more - but they're all made to copy DVDs onto a harddrive. XCDroast is the only program I've seen that's made to COPY DVD-to-DVD. However, I can't get it to work.

Reply back and let me know how it goes,

Foo

ew0kian, just in case RH9 has the USB 2.0 module already compiled, try the 'modprobe' command that foobardude suggested in the first place. It might save you any unnecessary kernel compiling.

You will know if the module is compiled if 'usb-uhci.o' is in /lib/modules/<kernel version>/kernel/drivers/usb, where <kernel version> is '2.4.21-0.25mdk' in my case. RH9 may have slight differences to these. You can find out your kernel version by typing, at a console:

uname -a

Good news!

I -FINALLY- got my DVD burner to work.

Download X-CDroast:
http://www.xcdroast.org

You'll need to download the proDVD package of cdrecord and follow instructions:
http://www.xcdroast.org/manual/dvd.html

As far as copying DVD to DVD, you'll need to decrypt it. Also, you'll need to create an image of the DVD first. This could take some time so be patient!

As far as what my problem was, I didn't compile my IDE interface into the kernel so it was using a generic one. However, my IDE interface was a cheap POS and generic drivers didn't work well with it. After I did that, my problems went away.

Post a reply if you're having trouble. I suggest if you're interested in learning about linux to learn about compiling the kernel - although it's a painful leap and will be very frustrating to learn, it's the easiest way to learn about linux.

Foo