Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2432 mails)

[email.listen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Tue, 19. June 2007 01:25:56 Clark Sann wrote:
> Charles Obler wrote:
> > --- "Rajko M." <rmatov101@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> I'll write article on openSUSE wiki about parallel
> >> port scanner installation,
> >> but I have no ZIP drive and I can't do much to
> >> rescue information how to
> >> install them. Your experience can help to people
> >> like you to give second life
> >> to their ZIP drives.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Regards,
> >> Rajko.
> >
> > Wow!  I HAVE a parallel port scanner with M$ driver
> > disk.  I tried to find a way to get the scanner to
> > work with Linux, but finally gave up.
> >
> > When you write the article, it will be very helpful to
> > me!  Thanks!
> >
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________________
> >___________ Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's
> > Comedy with an Edge to see what's on, when.
> > http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222
>
> It turned out to be very easy to make my 100 MB Parallel port zip drive
> work.
> Here are 6 simple steps along with some comments....
>
> 1.  From a root shell, run modprobe ppa and modprobe imm.
> One of them should work to install the drivers for your parallel port
> zip drive.
>
> ( I guess "install the drivers" is accurate??
> I am a little fuzzy as to just what it is that modprobe does.
> I'm even more fuzzy about what insmod does.)
>
> For me, imm did not work, but ppa did.
>
> My research showed that imm only works for newer drives.  Mine is REAL
> old.
>
> I don't really understand why, but when running modprobe, the results of
> the modprobe
> command are not shown in the terminal window.  Goofy linux.  Instead you
> have to go
> look at var/log/messages to see the results of the execution of the
> command.
> One of them should produce messages indicating the parallel port zip
> drive has been found.
> The messages will also tell you what device has been created.  This will
> be an entry in the /dev folder.
> Once I ran modprobe ppa,  a new /dev/sda4 folder appeared.  Make a note
> of the folder name.
>
> 2.  Create a mount point.  I added a folder named zip100.0 to /media....
> what I ended up was this....
> /media/zip100.0.
> This becomes the place where the directory of the zip drive will be
> placed when you get the
> kernel talking to the hardware.
>
> 3.  Modify /etc/fstab.  This ties the device to the mount point.  I
> modified fstab by adding the following line....
>
> /dev/sda4            /media/zip100.0      vfat       auto,user,exec,sync 0
> 0
>
> This tells the kernel to tie the device (/dev/sda4) to the mount point
> (/media/zip100.0).
> It also says that the drive will be formatted using FAT,
> that it should be automatically mounted
> (which did not work so you might just as well put in noauto instead),
> that any user can mount the drive,
> that you can execute binaries,
> and that the mount occurs synchronously.
>
> 4.  Now it is time to mount the drive.  Everything up to now is setting
> up the plumbing to allow you to mount.
> Stuff a zip disk in the drive, preferably one with data on it.
> From a shell, type "mount /media/zip100.0"
> Now you should see the directory of the disk in /media/zip100.0.
> Isn't linux wonderful?  And so easy too!
>
> When you are done, issue the command "umount /media/zip100.0".  You will
> not be able to eject the disk until you
> unmount it.  Note, unmount is "umount" not "unmount".
>
> 5.  There are only two problems remaining.  The first is that it sucks
> to have to enter "modprobe ppa" or "modprobe imm" every
> time you boot.  To fix this, in /etc/init.d/boot.local, add either
> "modprobe ppa" or "modprobe imm".   This will
> cause the command to be automatically executed at boot time.

The correct place for loading kernel modules on boot is /etc/modules

---8<--- /etc/modules ---8<--- 
# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.
ppa
#imm
---8<---   ---8<---   ---8<--- 


> 6.  The remaining problem is that you might wish there was an icon on
> your desktop you could click to view the drive contents
> in  Konqueror.  It turns out to be surprisingly easy to add this.
>
> Right click on the desktop.  Select Create New and then Link to Device
> and then Zip Device.
> In the Devices tab, select the device (/dev/sda4) and you are done.  An
> icon will be created.
>
> How to test your new zip drive installation....
>
> Stuff a disk in the drive.
> Click the new icon on the desktop.
> Konqueror should come up with the drive contents.  You should be able to
> add and delete files and folders.
>
> When you are done, right click on the icon and select either eject or
> unmount.
> Eject should unmount the drive and then eject it.
> For me eject did not always do the eject but it did always unmount it.
> You can always eject it manually.
>
> Problems.
>
> For some reason modprobe ppa did not work at first.
> Or maybe it did but I didn't know enough about what to look for because
> the result was in messages.
> I'm not sure what happened there.
> Also sometimes, the whole thing stops working and you cannot read or
> unmount or eject.  I had to reboot when this happened.
> Restarting KDE did not work.
>
> I hope this helps.  Unfortunately I no longer have my zip drive or any
> disks.
> I only had the system long enough to see if any old disks I had laying
> around had any useful data on them.
>
> I will still try to help, especially in the short term while my memory
> is still good!  HA!

regards,
thomas
-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx