SYM-2 driver released (:=sym53c8xx+ncr53c8xx).

From: Gérard Roudier (groudier@club-internet.fr)
Date: Sat Dec 30 2000 - 13:57:44 EST

  • Next message: Linus Torvalds: "Re: [RFC] Generic deferred file writing"

    I just released sym-2.1.0 driver, that, according to my personnal QA
    plan :-), is the first Beta-release of this major driver version.

    People interested in either using or just trying it can found the
    reference tarball at the following URL:

    ftp://ftp.tux.org/roudier/drivers/portable/sym-2.1.x/sym-2.1.0-20001230.tar.gz

    This driver replaces functionnaly both sym53c8xx and ncr53c8xx.
    It is in fact the FreeBSD sym driver that got portable and that, for now,
    also supports Linux.

    The driver reference sources layout is the following:

    Common:
        sym_conf.h sym_defs.h sym_fw.c sym_fw.h
        sym_fw1.h sym_fw2.h sym_hipd.c sym_hipd.h
        sym_malloc.c sym_misc.h sym_nvram.c

    FreeBSD:
        sym_glue.c sym_glue.h

    Linux:
        sym53c8xx.h sym_glue.c sym_glue.h

    All the files can also be clicked/clipped :) individually from the
    the following directory:

       ftp://ftp.tux.org/roudier/drivers/portable/sym-2.1.x/current/

    Given the genealogy of this driver, I have decided to maintain a high
    level of compatibility with the sym53c8xx driver under Linux.
    But, due to the number of sources files (14 under Linux), the driver
    sources will now own a separate directory instead of being dropped in
    the huge drivers/scsi/ directory.

    The installation procedure supplied in the tarball moves the files to:

           /usr/linux/drivers/scsi/sym53c8xx/

    As a result, a tiny patch is needed for the related kernel files to
    be aware of the new driver files location. And, as I have limited
    time, only patches for 2.2.16, 2.2.17 and 2.2.18 are supplied for now.

    People who will succeed installing the driver on other Linux kernel
    releases, especially recent ones, can send me the corresponding tiny
    kernel patch. Btw, this driver does not support Linux-2.0.X kernels.

    The major improvements against sym53c8xx driver can be summarized
    as follows:

    - Don't use the scsi_obsolete interface anymore.
      I could word it as 'use the new error handling interface', but the best
      advantage, in my opinion, is that driver entry points are not called
      recursively as does the old scsi code.

    - Support for the entire NCR/SYMBIOS/LSILOGIC 53C[8XX|1010] in a single
      driver without significant bloat of the object code.
      The driver with all options enabled is about 73K not stripped and 59K
      stripped under Linux-2.2.18.

    - Refining of a couple of work-arounds that let me claim that the driver
      supports the best possible all chips of all revisions, even very early
      revisions of recent chips.

    I am highly interested in receiving reports, either success or problem,
    about this driver version, especially when the driver is tried on non Intel
    IA32 platforms.

      Gérard.

    -
    To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
    the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
    Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Dec 30 2000 - 15:28:24 EST