Installing Slackware 9.0 with a PCMCIA CD-ROM drive
 

I have an old laptop with a PCMCIA CD-ROM drive. I have the necessary boot/install/driver disks and CD for a Slackware 9.0 install. The floppy disks have beeen tested and tested and tested and are not bad (and I replaced them anyway just to make sure). The CD works in every other system I put it in, plus the logs make it look like it's not getting far enough for that to make a difference.

I start the install normally, booting off of the floppies and using "pcmcia" to attempt to load the pcmcia modules so I can use the CD for installing. Then, when I go to install, setup can't find the drive.

The following lines from /var/log/messages lead me to believe that the problem lies in loading the modules for the drive:
May 4 05:04:12 slackware daemon.info cardmgr[396]: watching 2 sockets
May 4 05:04:12 slackware daemon.info cardmgr[397]: starting, version is 3.2.3
May 4 05:04:13 slackware daemon.info cardmgr[397]: socket 1: ATA/IDE Fixed Disk
May 4 05:04:13 slackware daemon.info cardmgr[397]: executing: 'modprobe ide-cs'
May 4 05:04:13 slackware daemon.info cardmgr[397]: + modprobe: Can't locate module ide-cs
May 4 05:04:13 slackware daemon.info cardmgr[397]: modprobe exited with status 255
May 4 05:04:13 slackware daemon.info cardmgr[397]: module /lib/modules/2.4.20/pcmcia/ide-cs.o not available
May 4 05:04:14 slackware daemon.info cardmgr[397]: get dev info on socket 1 failed: Resource temporarily unavailable

lsmod says that I currently have the modules ds, i82365, isa-pnp, and pcmcia_core loaded.

I think that the problem is modprobe not finding ide-cs, but mounting the pcmcia.dsk floppy on another machine has found that ide-cs is not on the disk.

Help, please?

Well, from what I have been able to determine I agree the module is not on the disk. I suspect the disk appears to more centered on networking than IDE CDROM support.

I would think you could download the module and then use insmod to load it. If you need a source, I posted it on my ftp server. ftp://ftp.jpf.biz/linux/ide-cs.o.gz Save it to a disk then mount it after you boot the normal disk sets. Copy the file to the ramdisk root file system "/", I think it will fit. Then unmount the disk and proceed with the pcmcia procedures. When the module fails to load, then use "insmod /ide-cs.o.gz" to load the module. Then see if it detects your CDROM drive. You can use the "dmesg" command to see any additional output.

Perhaps it will help.

It works... I have the rest of the install gonig now. Thank you very much!

For future reference in case somebody comes across this in a year and the link isn't there or something, the file is also available in the kernel-modules...tgz file under "a" on the install disk.

My PCMCIA disk doesn't load i82365. How can I put that in manually?

help
 

i have done everything above thus far,

however, where is the pcmcia CDrom device? and how can i mount it?

After the module ide-cs is loaded, use the dmesg commend to see it detected the drive. Once it is detected, I would think it woudl be something like /dev/hde if normal IDE. hda,hdb,hdc,hdd are usually real IDE interfaces, so hde would be next available. If it uses the generic SCSI interface for the PCMCIA layer then it could also be called, /dev/scd0.

As for mounting, just try different variations of the mount command. But the setup program should be able to locate it without mounting manually. But for mounting examples try;

mount -t iso9660 /dev/hde /cdrom

or

mount -t iso9660 /dev/scd0 /cdrom

Perhaps it will help.

YIKES~!
 

AHHHHHHHHH after hours and hours...

i just realized that my PCMCIA CD drive was NOT supported by the package that was given to me...

i have an old laptop, compaq armada 4120... and the PCMCIA CD drive is called AXONIX ProMedia R2... stinking old and not supported...

i had to manually configure the PCMCIA config files...

and FINALLY mounted the CDROM...

now im a happy penguin installing the pacakges that are too big to be installed through 1.44" floppy disks...


thank you~

yiKeS ! i need help with ide-cs.o.gz
 

Hi All,

I'm kind of stuck here and was wondering if someone could help. I'm installing on a 486DX4 base with 64mb ram, and a 6 gb drive IBM 701 laptop. The only flaw with the laptop is that is doesnt come with an ide cd rom, actually it only has one IDE channel for the IDE hard drive. Anyhow, I'm stuck to using a pcmcia external cd rom. For the most part, installing Slackware 10, kernel 2.4.26, I'm using the boot disk for ibm microchannel, and the two root disk as well as a pcmcia module.
Here is what happens when I start the installation; 1st, I boot up fine, use the two root diskette, then I log on as root, I then type pcmcia and it prompts me to insert the pcmcia module diskette which I do, it does it's thing, the external pcmcia cd rom powers up, but is unable to detect the cd rom. So after reading the post here in regards to ide-cs.o.gz, I try to load it and it says that the module was compiled for kernel 2.4.20 and I'm currently using 2.4.26. I actually tried to load it directly from the diskette, while it says here to copy the file instead to the hard file, well, being a newbie, I still havent figured out how to copy a file from a diskette to the hard file let alone to the root of the hard file. So of course, I've just ordered "Linux for Dummies" in hopes it will help me understand Linux a little better. I'm a seasoned msdos guy (regret in my youth I didn't learn Linux when I had the chance) but when it comes to simple things like copy a file from a floppy to a hard drive, if I eventually don't get it, I end up spending hours trying to figure it all out. I want to install Slackware 10 on my machine, but holly cow, am I having problems ! Does anyone know where I can find the ide-cs.o.gz file compiled for Slackware 10, or should I bring it down a notch and go with Slackware 9 instead. By the way, what Slackware version uses kernel 2.4.20 ???
Help if you can, and I hope I don't insult anyone with my stupid questions. I'm stuck and really need help. Thanks Justin