new aic7xxx driver DOES NOT WORK with cdrecord

new aic7xxx driver DOES NOT WORK with cdrecord

[R Shapiro]

A little while ago I reported a puzzling change to scsi behavior in
the 2.4.3 kernels.  I didn't get any explanation of what was going on,
but after burning half a dozen coasters on a scsi CD-R, testing
various kernel configs, I think I finally understand what's happening.
A completely new driver for aic7xxx was introduced in 2.4.3, or
thereabouts, and it just doesn't work for CD-Rs.  For now it's still
possible to load the old driver (CONFIG_SCSI_AIC7XXX_OLD), which I
only just discovered, and this driver works fine.  But according to
the documentation, support for this will supposedly be removed soon.

Who should I report this problem to? Does Adaptec write these linux
drivers or is it done by a volunteer working on his/her own?  Ideally
I'd like to use the newer driver, if it can be made to work properly.
At the very least I'd like to ensure that the old driver isn't removed
before the new one works.

Or is it possible this is a cdrecord issue, and not a driver problem
after all?  That doesn't make sense to me, but I want to consider all
options.

Is anyone using the new aic7xxx driver successfully with cdrecord?


Thanks for any assistance -



--
reshapiro@mediaone.net

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Re: new aic7xxx driver DOES NOT WORK with cdrecord

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

>A little while ago I reported a puzzling change to scsi behavior in
>the 2.4.3 kernels.  I didn't get any explanation of what was going on,
>but after burning half a dozen coasters on a scsi CD-R, testing
>various kernel configs, I think I finally understand what's happening.
>A completely new driver for aic7xxx was introduced in 2.4.3, or
>thereabouts, and it just doesn't work for CD-Rs.  For now it's still
>possible to load the old driver (CONFIG_SCSI_AIC7XXX_OLD), which I
>only just discovered, and this driver works fine.  But according to
>the documentation, support for this will supposedly be removed soon.
>
>Who should I report this problem to? Does Adaptec write these linux
>drivers or is it done by a volunteer working on his/her own?  Ideally
>I'd like to use the newer driver, if it can be made to work properly.
>At the very least I'd like to ensure that the old driver isn't removed
>before the new one works.

The new driver is written & maintained by Justin T. Gibbs
<gibbs@scsiguy.com>, who is, I think, supported (or working for)
Adaptec. It's supposed to be _much_ better than the old one (and
actually gives better throughput on the 29160N in my G4).

Justin is pretty responsive to problem reports, I would suggest
you contact him and eventually CC to the linux-kernel mailing
list. I think he does have a PPC to test with.

Ben.


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Re: new aic7xxx driver DOES NOT WORK with cdrecord

[R Shapiro]

Benjamin Herrenschmidt writes:
 > The new driver is written & maintained by Justin T. Gibbs


I just got a reply from him:

 > The version in 2.4.3 is, unfortunately, a bit old.  Linus didn't
 > bother to apply the patches I recommended.



The current version of this driver is 6.1.8.  The version in
ppc.linuxcare.com::linux-pmac-devel seems to be 6.1.5, which I'm
assuming is the same as in the kernel.org 2.4.3.  I'll be trying 6.1.8
later today.  It's available from

 http://people.freebsd.org/~gibbs/linux/


--
reshapiro@mediaone.net


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Re: newer aic7xxx driver DOES WORK with cdrecord

[R Shapiro]

Benjamin Herrenschmidt writes:
 > The new driver is written & maintained by Justin T. Gibbs
 > <gibbs@scsiguy.com>, who is, I think, supported (or working for)
 > Adaptec. It's supposed to be _much_ better than the old one (and
 > actually gives better throughput on the 29160N in my G4).

As reported in my last message, the linuxcare sources are not using
Gibbs' latest patches, presumably because Linus hasn't approved them
yet.  The 6.1.5 driver included in that kernels doesn't work reliably
but the 6.1.8 driver does, at least for the one test that I just ran
(writing an iso image to a cd-r at 4x).  Can we get the 6.1.8 sources
into the linuxcare devel kernel?



--
reshapiro@mediaone.net


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Re: newer aic7xxx driver DOES WORK with cdrecord

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

>
>As reported in my last message, the linuxcare sources are not using
>Gibbs' latest patches, presumably because Linus hasn't approved them
>yet.  The 6.1.5 driver included in that kernels doesn't work reliably
>but the 6.1.8 driver does, at least for the one test that I just ran
>(writing an iso image to a cd-r at 4x).  Can we get the 6.1.8 sources
>into the linuxcare devel kernel?

You would have to ask paulus for that. I'll include them in my kernels
however.

Ben.


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