laptop with 2 sets of PCMCIA slots

shoot2kill · 10-20-2002, 12:49 PM

I am having an old laptop which has 2 sets of PCMCIA slots. 1 of them contains the embedded modem + ethernet card.

Refering to some informations obtain from the internet:

It transpires that the Laptop has two separate PCMCIA bridges from two different hardware suppliers; one is a Texas Instruments 1131 and one is a Cirrus PD672x. In Linux 2.2.x these were both handled by the i82365 module, but in 2.4.x some of the older drivers were moved into a driver called yenta_socket.

The PCMCIA startup script will only load one driver module. With Linux 2.2.x machines this was no problem -- one module loads, two bridges detected. In 2.4.x it loads only the i82365 module -- the external PCMCIA interface -- the internal one is not detected and thus neither is the NIC/modem

Now, how do I get the Cirrus PCMCIA bridge to work, so that I can use the embedded modem+ethernet card(internal).

Any help is appreciate!!!

El Kid · 10-21-2002, 01:36 AM

did you try modprobe yenta_socket?

shoot2kill · 10-21-2002, 10:50 AM

nope, becuase yenta_socket is already loaded, like I said there are total 2 sets of PCMCIA bridge, the Texas Instrument bridge was detected but not the Cirrus bridge. Now, I want to get the Cirrus bridge up, as the emebedded xircom modem+ethernet are in-built to the Cirrus bridge; so that I can use them.

finegan · 10-21-2002, 09:32 PM

One step uglier:

From the kernel pcmcia page at pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net

Quote:

In the standalone pcmcia-cs drivers, the i82365 module supports both
ISA-to-PCMCIA, PCI-to-PCMCIA, and PCI-to-CardBus bridges. The CardBus
socket driver in the 2.4 tree is the "yenta_socket" driver. It is
selected by the CONFIG_CARDBUS option. In your PCMCIA startup
options, this driver should be specified in place of the i82365
driver. The kernel version of the i82365 driver, selected by
CONFIG_I82365, only supports ISA-to-PCMCIA bridges. PCI-to-PCMCIA
bridges that are not CardBus capable, like the Cirrus PD6729, are not
supported at all by the kernel PCMCIA drivers.

Its possible to re-compile your 2.4.x kernel, take all of the in-kernel pcmcia support the heck out, then download a newer pcmcia-cs than what you have, 3.2.1 saw some cool bugfixes, and compile that against your new 2.4.x and then possibly hack up a script or two to stop init from trying to modprobe yenta.

That's it, a hardcore switch back the pcmcia-cs.

Or you could install Slack 8.1, the only current distro that STILL releases on pcmcia-cs.

Cheers,

Finegan

shoot2kill · 10-23-2002, 09:32 PM

Hi Fin,

Thanks for your response! Last night, I compiled the latest pcmcia-cs package, 3.2.1 and it works after a reboot, and I heard 2 beeps, and I knew that the Xircom modem+ethernet loaded without fail. Again, thanks for you advice.