Before starting, you should think about whether you really need to compile the PCMCIA package yourself. All common Linux distributions come with pre-compiled driver packages. Generally, you only need to install the drivers from scratch if you need a new feature of the current drivers, or if you've updated and/or reconfigured your kernel in a way that is incompatible with the drivers included with your Linux distribution. While compiling the package is not technically difficult, it does require some general Linux familiarity.
The following things should be installed on your system before you begin:
You need to have a complete linux source tree for your kernel, not just an up-to-date kernel image. The driver modules contain some references to kernel source files. While you may want to build a new kernel to remove unnecessary drivers, installing PCMCIA does not require you to do so.
Current ``stable'' kernel sources and patches are available from
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/v2.0, or from
ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/sources/system/v2.0.
Development kernels can be found in the corresponding v2.1
subdirectories. Current module utilities can be found in the same
locations.
In the Linux kernel source tree, the Documentation/Changes
file describes the versions of all sorts of other system components
that are required for that kernel release. You may want to check
through this and verify that your system is up to date, especially if
you have updated your kernel. If you are using a development kernel,
be sure that you are using the right combination of shared libraries
and module tools.
When configuring your kernel, if you plan on using a PCMCIA ethernet card, you should turn on networking support but turn off the normal Linux network card drivers, including the ``pocket and portable adapters''. The PCMCIA network card drivers are all implemented as loadable modules. Any drivers compiled into your kernel will only waste space.
If you want to use SLIP, PPP, or PLIP, you do need to either configure your kernel with these enabled, or use the loadable module versions of these drivers. There is an unfortunate deficiency in the kernel config process in 1.2.X kernels, in that it is not possible to set configuration options (like SLIP compression) for a loadable module, so it is probably better to just link SLIP into the kernel if you need it.
In order to use a PCMCIA token ring adapter, your kernel should be
configured with ``Token Ring driver support'' (CONFIG_TR)
enabled, though you should leave CONFIG_IBMTR off.
If you want to use a PCMCIA IDE adapter, your kernel should be
configured with CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE_PCMCIA enabled, for 2.0.*
through 2.1.7 kernels. Older kernels do not support removeable IDE
devices; newer kernels do not require a special configuration
setting.
If you will be using a PCMCIA SCSI adapter, then enable
CONFIG_SCSI when configuring your kernel. Also, enable any top
level drivers (SCSI disk, tape, cdrom, generic) that you expect to
use. All low-level drivers for particular host adapters should be
disabled, as they will just take up space.
If you want to modularize a driver that is needed for a PCMCIA device,
you must modify /etc/pcmcia/config to specify what modules
need to be loaded for what card types. For example, if the serial
driver is modularized, then the serial device definition should be:
device "serial_cs"
class "serial" module "misc/serial", "serial_cs"
This package includes an X-based card status utility called
cardinfo. This utility is based on a freely distributed user
interface toolkit called the XForms Library. This library is
available as a separate package with most Linux distributions. If you
would like to build cardinfo, you should install XForms and all
the normal X header files and libraries before configuring the PCMCIA
package.
Here is a synopsis of the installation process:
make config'' in the new pcmcia-cs-3.1.? directory.make all'', then ``make install''./etc/pcmcia for your site, if needed.If you plan to install any contributed client drivers not included in the core PCMCIA distribution, unpack each of them in the top-level directory of the PCMCIA source tree. Then follow the normal build instructions. The extra drivers will be compiled and installed automatically.
Running ``make config'' prompts for a few configuration options,
and checks out your system to verify that it satisfies all
prerequisites for installing PCMCIA support. In most cases, you'll be
able to just accept all the default configuration options. Be sure to
carefully check the output of this command in case there are problems.
The following options are available:
If you are compiling the package for installation on another machine,
specify an alternate target directory when prompted. This should be
an absolute path. All files will be installed relative to this
directory. You will then be able to tar this directory tree and
copy to your target machine, and unpack relative to its root directory
to install everything in the proper places.
Some of the support utilities (cardctl and cardinfo) can be
compiled either in ``safe'' or ``trusting'' forms. The ``safe'' forms
prevent non-root users from modifying card configurations. The
``trusting'' forms permit ordinary users to issue commands to suspend
and resume cards, reset cards, and change the current configuration
scheme. The default is to build the safe forms.
This option must be selected if you wish to use 32-bit CardBus cards. It is not required for CardBus bridge support, if you only plan to use 16-bit PC Cards.
This builds additional code into the PCMCIA core module to communicate
with a system's PnP BIOS to obtain resource information for built-in
``motherboard'' devices (serial and parallel ports, sound, etc), to
help avoid resource conflicts. If enabled, some extra resource files
will be created under /proc/bus/pccard, and the lspnp
and setpnp tools can be used to view and manipulate PnP BIOS
devices. However, this setting causes problems on some laptops and is
not turned on by default.
There are a few kernel configuration options that affect the PCMCIA tools. The configuration script can deduce these from the running kernel (the default and most common case). Alternatively, if you are compiling for installation on another machine, it can read the configuration from a kernel source tree, or each option can be set interactively.
The Configure script can also be executed non-interactively, for
automatic builds or to quickly reconfigure after a kernel update.
Some additional less-frequently-used options can be only be set from
the command line. Running ``Configure --help'' lists all
available options.
Running ``make all'' followed by ``make install'' will build
and then install the kernel modules and utility programs. Kernel
modules are installed under /lib/modules/<version>/pcmcia.
The cardmgr and cardctl programs are installed in
/sbin. If cardinfo is built, it is installed in
/usr/bin/X11.
Configuration files will be installed in the /etc/pcmcia
directory. If you are installing over an older version, your old
config scripts will be backed up before being replaced. The saved
scripts will be given an *.O extension.
If you don't know what kind of host controller your system uses, you
can use the probe utility in the cardmgr/ subdirectory to
determine this. There are two major types: the Databook TCIC-2 type
and the Intel i82365SL-compatible type.
In a few cases, the probe command will be unable to determine
your controller type automatically. If you have a Halikan NBD 486
system, it has a TCIC-2
controller at an unusual location: you'll need to edit rc.pcmcia
to load the tcic module, and also set the PCIC_OPTS
parameter to ``tcic_base=0x02c0''.
On some systems using Cirrus controllers, including the NEC Versa M,
the BIOS puts the controller in a special suspended state at system
startup time. On these systems, the probe command will fail to
find any known host controller. If this happens, edit rc.pcmcia
and set PCIC to i82365, and PCIC_OPTS to
``wakeup=1''.
The PCMCIA startup script recognizes several groups of startup options, set via environment variables. Multiple options should be separated by spaces and enclosed in quotes. Placement of startup options depends on the Linux distribution used. They may be placed directly in the startup script, or they may be kept in a separate option file. See the Notes about specific Linux distributions for specifics. The following variables can be set:
PCMCIAThis variable specifies whether PCMCIA support should be started up, or not. If it is set to anything other than ``yes'', then the startup script will be disabled.
PCICThis identifies the PC Card Interface Controller driver module. There are two options: ``tcic'' or ``i82365''. Virtually all current controllers are in the ``i82365'' group. This is the only mandatory option setting.
PCIC_OPTSThis specifies options for the PCIC module. Some host controllers have optional features that may or may not be implemented in a particular system. In some cases, it is impossible for the socket driver to detect if these features are implemented. See the corresponding man page for a complete description of the available options.
CORE_OPTSThis specifies options for the pcmcia_core module, which
implements the core PC Card driver services. See ``man
pcmcia_core'' for more information.
CARDMGR_OPTSThis specifies options to be passed to the cardmgr daemon. See
``man cardmgr'' for more information.
SCHEMEIf set, then the PC Card configuration scheme will be initialized to this at driver startup time. See the Overview of the PCMCIA configuration scripts for a discussion of schemes.
The low level socket drivers, tcic and i82365, have various
bus timing parameters that may need to be adjusted for certain systems
with unusual bus clocking. Symptoms of timing problems can include
card recognition problems, lock-ups under heavy loads, high error
rates, or poor device performance. Only certain host bridges have
adjustable timing parameters: check the corresponding man page to see
what options are available for your controller. Here is a brief
summary:
cmd_time flag, which determines the
length of PCMCIA bus cycles. Fast 486 systems (i.e., DX4-100) seem to
often benefit from increasing this from 6 (the default) to 12 or 16.fast_pci flag, which
should be set if the PCI bus speed is greater than 25 MHz.async_clock flag changes the relative clocking of PCMCIA bus and
host bus cycles. Setting this flag adds extra wait states to some
operations. However, I have yet to hear of a laptop that needs this.pcmcia_core module has the cis_speed parameter for
changing the memory speed used for accessing a card's Card Information
Structure (CIS). On some systems with fast bus clocks, increasing
this parameter (i.e., slowing down card accesses) may be beneficial
for card recognition problems.i82365 module should be loaded
with the extra_sockets parameter set to 1. This should not be
necessary for detection of PCI-to-PCMCIA or PCI-to-CardBus bridges.Here are some timing settings for specific systems:
freq_bypass=1 cmd_time=8''.cmd_time=12''.cmd_time=16''.fast_pci=1''.
Card Services should automatically avoid allocating IO ports and
interrupts already in use by other standard devices. It will also
attempt to detect conflicts with unknown devices, but this is not
completely reliable. In some cases, you may need to explicitly
exclude resources for a device in /etc/pcmcia/config.opts.
Here are some resource settings for specific laptop types. View this list with suspicion: it may give useful hints for solving problems, but it is inevitably out of date and certainly contains mistakes. Corrections and additions are welcome.
This section is incomplete. Corrections and additions are welcome.
Debian uses a System V boot script arrangement. The PCMCIA startup
script is installed as /etc/init.d/pcmcia, and startup
options are specified in /etc/pcmcia.conf. Debian's syslog
configuration will place kernel messages in /var/log/messages
and cardmgr messages in /var/log/daemon.log.
Debian distributes the PCMCIA system in two packages: the
``pcmcia-cs'' package contains cardmgr and other tools, man
pages, and configuration scripts; and the ``pcmcia-modules''
package contains the kernel driver modules.
These distributions use a System V boot script organization. The
PCMCIA startup script is installed as
/etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia, and boot options are kept in
/etc/sysconfig/pcmcia. Beware that installing the Red Hat
package may install a default boot option file that has PCMCIA
disabled. To enable PCMCIA, the ``PCMCIA'' variable should be
set to ``yes''. Red Hat's default syslogd configuration will
record all interesting messages in /var/log/messages.
Red Hat's PCMCIA package contains a replacement for the network setup
script, /etc/pcmcia/network, which meshes with the Red Hat
linuxconf configuration system. This is convenient for the case
where just one network adapter is used, with one set of network
parameters, but does not have the full flexibility of the regular
PCMCIA network script. Compiling and installing a clean PCMCIA source
distribution will overwrite the network script, breaking the link to
the Red Hat tools. If you prefer the Red Hat tools, either use only
Red Hat RPM's, or create /etc/pcmcia/network.opts with the
following contents:
if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 ] ; then
start_fn () {
/sbin/ifup $1
}
stop_fn () {
/sbin/ifdown $1
}
fi
If you do use linuxconf (or netconf) to configure your
network interface, leave the ``kernel module'', ``I/O port'', and
``irq'' parameters blank. Setting these parameters may interfere with
proper operation of the PCMCIA subsystem.
At boot time, when the Red Hat network subsystem starts up, it may say ``Delaying eth0 initialization'' and ``[FAILED]''. This is actually not a failure: it means that this network interface will not be initialized until after the PCMCIA network device is configured.
Red Hat bundles their slightly modified PCMCIA source distribution in their kernel SRPM, rather than as a separate source package.
Slackware uses a BSD boot script arrangement. The PCMCIA startup
script is installed as /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia, and boot options
are specified in rc.pcmcia itself. The PCMCIA startup script
is invoked from /etc/rc.d/rc.S.
SuSE uses a System V init script arrangement, with init scripts stored
under /sbin/init.d. The PCMCIA startup script is installed as
/sbin/init.d/pcmcia, and startup options are kept in
/etc/rc.config. The SuSE startup script is somewhat limited
and does not allow PCMCIA startup variables to be overridden from the
lilo boot prompt.