2.6.x kernel with ide-scsi, anybody else having problems?

[XOR != OR]

Hi folks, I've got an ide tape drive that works flawlessly with the 2.4 series of kernels + ide-scsi, but I want to upgrade to the 2.6 series. I've had no luck making it work with ide-tape, so I'm stuck with using ide-scsi ( not that this is a bad thing. If it works, it works, who am I to argue with that? ).

Problem is, ide-scsi doesn't seem to work under 2.6. I have scsi emulation support turned on under devices, and ide tape support disabled. I have scsi support turned on.

dmesg normally should indicate that ide-scsi is attached to the appropriate device ( /dev/hdd in this case ), but there is nothing like that when I boot the 2.6 kernel.

Am I missing something? The 2.4 kernels I'm using are stock Fedora kernels, so they may be doing something wonky I don't know about.

 

[MTB2Live Live4Comps]

scsi emulation is generally broken, from what i've heard. but regular scsi support isn't. however, both of these were with 2.6.0 not the current release.

 

[Josh_B]

Originally posted by MTB2Live,Live4Comps
scsi emulation is generally broken, from what i've heard. but regular scsi support isn't. however, both of these were with 2.6.0 not the current release.

I can confirm that at least 2.6.0-bk1 and up have been working flawlessly.

I downloaded 2.6.4-bk2 this morning and it works great, too.

NOTE: For anyone reading this who is still using ide-scsi to burn CDs, you no longer need to use this module. ide-cd now handles ATAPI burners properly

 

[XOR != OR]

Originally posted by Josh_B
I can confirm that at least 2.6.0-bk1 and up have been working flawlessly.

I downloaded 2.6.4-bk2 this morning and it works great, too.

NOTE: For anyone reading this who is still using ide-scsi to burn CDs, you no longer need to use this module. ide-cd now handles ATAPI burners properly

This is a pretty amorphous question, but do you know of anything funky I have to turn on in the kernel to get ide-scsi working properly? Basically, I've rattled around devices looking for stuff, but all I've found is scsi emulation under atapi and scsi support under the scsi tab.

Is it something to do with the bk2 patches?

 

[Josh_B]

Originally posted by XOR != OR
This is a pretty amorphous question, but do you know of anything funky I have to turn on in the kernel to get ide-scsi working properly? Basically, I've rattled around devices looking for stuff, but all I've found is scsi emulation under atapi and scsi support under the scsi tab.

Is it something to do with the bk2 patches?

Do you have a line like 'hdd=ide-scsi' in your lilo.conf or grub.conf file?

I believe you have to pass this parameter at boot time for it to work correctly.

The bk series of patches is simply the latest kernel snapshot. I doubt Linus would've released any production kernels where the ide-scsi module would've been so broken as to not recognize devices. (Then again, there was the infamous dissapearing parallel port in 2.4.11-donotuse!)

All I've ever done to get ide-scsi working is to ensure that I have SCSI-emulation turned on as a module in the IDE section, and then to enable generic SCSI support in the SCSI tab. I'm not ever sure you need to have the generic SCSI option turned on for SCSI emulation to work though, but I've always played it safe and left it on.

 

[XOR != OR]

Originally posted by Josh_B
Do you have a line like 'hdd=ide-scsi' in your lilo.conf or grub.conf file?

Here's the weird thing: I've done it both ways. Under the stock fc1 kernel, regardless of the command line parameters, it picks it up just fine. ( I even had an old hdc=ide-scsi, and ide-scsi attached itself to hdd ). Under 2.6.4, no luck either way.

All I've ever done to get ide-scsi working is to ensure that I have SCSI-emulation turned on as a module in the IDE section, and then to enable generic SCSI support in the SCSI tab. I'm not ever sure you need to have the generic SCSI option turned on for SCSI emulation to work though, but I've always played it safe and left it on.

Hmm..looks like more digging for me. Thanks!

 

[Josh_B]

Originally posted by XOR != OR
Here's the weird thing: I've done it both ways. Under the stock fc1 kernel, regardless of the command line parameters, it picks it up just fine. ( I even had an old hdc=ide-scsi, and ide-scsi attached itself to hdd ). Under 2.6.4, no luck either way. Hmm..looks like more digging for me. Thanks!

Any luck yet?

Make sure to post the solution once you get it working.



P.S. - It may seem obvious, but try searching the kernel release notes to see if there are any known issues... and also do a quick google as well. (You might've already done these, but what the hey - just thought I'd check.)

 

[XOR != OR]

Originally posted by Josh_B
Any luck yet?

Make sure to post the solution once you get it working.

Still working at it. It takes a while to redo kernel after kernel

P.S. - It may seem obvious, but try searching the kernel release notes to see if there are any known issues... and also do a quick google as well. (You might've already done these, but what the hey - just thought I'd check.)

Yeah, I've been through both. Little luck.

Half the problem I was having, as it turns out, was a bad tape. I was working with a bad tape for at least a couple hours, probably a day or more, so all the solutions that I tried that didn't work then, I'm having to go back through and retry.

Let this be a lesson to you folks, TAKE AND KEEP YOUR NOTES.

 

[Josh_B]

Let this be a lesson to you folks, TAKE AND KEEP YOUR NOTES.

My girlfriend keeps trying to throw out my notes.

I'll throw her out before I get rid of my notes

 

[XOR != OR]

Originally posted by Josh_B
My girlfriend keeps trying to throw out my notes.

I'll throw her out before I get rid of my notes

Good man.

Hey, related question, I'm a noob to tape, so this is probably something that everybody just "knows" and I don't: How do you tell how much space is left on the tape? I thought I could use tape blocks, and figure it out like that, but both compressed and uncompressed, a specific file takes the same number of blocks. So, I am confused.

 

[Josh_B]

Originally posted by XOR != OR
Good man.

Hey, related question, I'm a noob to tape, so this is probably something that everybody just "knows" and I don't: How do you tell how much space is left on the tape? I thought I could use tape blocks, and figure it out like that, but both compressed and uncompressed, a specific file takes the same number of blocks. So, I am confused.

Actually I have no idea... I've never had to use a tape to do backups. I normally use a CD or now a DVD...

For SCSI tape drives, I know there are some tools such as 'amanda' and 'star' that might help you perform backups, but other than that, I'm at a loss.