[1470] in linux-scsi channel archive
Announcements: New Driver & Firmware
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Leonard N. Zubkoff)
Tue Feb 25 15:37:56 1997
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 12:33:09 -0800
From: "Leonard N. Zubkoff" <lnz@dandelion.com>
To: linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu
Thought you all might want to see this. I sent it to over 300 people on my
mailing list late last night and slowly the messages are all being delivered.
Leonard
I am pleased to announce that version 2.0.7 of the BusLogic SCSI driver is now
available from my Linux Web page at http://www.dandelion.com/Linux/. Not only
does this mark the first production release of the FlashPoint support, but the
MultiMaster support has also been enhanced with improved reporting of AutoSCSI
configuration settings. In addition, /proc reporting of configuration messages
and data transfer statistics is now provided. The release notes for this
version are enclosed below.
BT-948/958/958D firmware versions 5.06I and 5.06J are also available from my
Linux Web page. If you have a BT-948/958/958D with an earlier firmware
version, I highly recommend you upgrade to 5.06I or 5.06J. Many bugs have been
fixed since the initial 5.05R release nearly a year ago. I've been running
5.06J for two and a half months and it's proven to be completely stable.
Leonard
BusLogic MultiMaster and FlashPoint SCSI Driver for Linux
Version 2.0.7 for Linux 2.0
PRODUCTION RELEASE
23 February 1997
Leonard N. Zubkoff
Dandelion Digital
lnz@dandelion.com
Copyright 1995 by Leonard N. Zubkoff <lnz@dandelion.com>
RELEASE NOTES
The primary focus of this release is to introduce support for BusLogic's
FlashPoint series of SCSI host adapters. Mylex/BusLogic has provided me with
the FlashPoint Driver Developer's Kit, which comprises documentation and freely
redistributable source code for the FlashPoint SCCB Manager. The SCCB Manager
is the library of code that runs on the host CPU and performs functions
analogous to the firmware on the MultiMaster Host Adapters.
The FlashPoint Host Adapters are:
BT-930 FlashPoint LT Ultra Fast Single-ended SCSI-2
BT-932 FlashPoint DL Dual Channel Ultra Fast Single-ended SCSI-2
BT-950 FlashPoint LW Ultra Wide Single-ended SCSI-2
BT-952 FlashPoint DW Dual Channel Ultra Wide Single-ended SCSI-2
Relatively little in the MultiMaster code has changed. FlashPoint support
primarily required reorganizing the existing code to better reflect the
relationship between the FlashPoint and MultiMaster interfaces. Since the
initial beta release of FlashPoint support in October, I have been working with
BusLogic Engineering to improve the robustness of the FlashPoint SCCB Manager
in the area of Timeout/Abort/Reset error recovery. This release includes the
latest FlashPoint SCCB Manager code, and should be substantially more reliable
than the previous version.
o The FlashPoint SCCB Manager can now generate ABORT TAG messages to abort
commands that have timed out, without requiring a bus reset. Bus Device
Reset and Host Adapter Reset are fully supported.
o FlashPoint Host Adapters are now accessed through I/O instructions rather
than through PCI memory mapped access as in the beta release. While memory
mapped access is faster, it appears to be problematic on some motherboard
chipsets, and it also causes problems due to bugs in the Digital 21052 Bridge
Chip on the FlashPoint DL and DW dual cards.
o FlashPoint Host Adapters are not yet supported on Alpha AXP.
o The /proc file system is now supported. Copies of the host adapter
configuration information together with data transfer and error recovery
statistics are now available through the /proc/scsi/BusLogic/<N> interface.
o In systems with both FlashPoint and PCI MultiMaster Host Adapters, the driver
will now attempt to determine which should be probed first by checking if the
BIOS primary disk is controlled by the first PCI MultiMaster Host Adapter.
By default, if both FlashPoint and PCI MultiMaster Host Adapters are present,
this driver will probe for PCI MultiMaster Host Adapters first unless the
BIOS primary disk is not controlled by the first PCI MultiMaster Host
Adapter, in which case FlashPoint Host Adapters will be probed first. The
kernel command line options "BusLogic=MultiMasterFirst" or
"BusLogic=FlashPointFirst" can be used to override this algorithm.
o All driver messages use a standard interface to include appropriate
KERN_<level> message level strings at the beginning of each line.
o At kernel configuration time, it is now possible to omit the FlashPoint
support from this driver. The FlashPoint SCCB Manager code is substantial,
so users of MultiMaster Host Adapters may wish to omit it. The FlashPoint
support is automatically omitted if CONFIG_PCI is not set.
o Alpha AXP systems using the PC164 motherboard would not work correctly with
the BT-948/958/958D due to the kernel or hardware not ignoring interrupts
that hadn't yet been registered with request_irq. This driver version no
longer requires that such interrupts be ignored.
o A NoProbePCI kernel command line option is now available. If this option
is specified, no interrogation of PCI Configuration Space will be made, and
hence only ISA Multimaster Host Adapters will be detected, as well as PCI
Multimaster Host Adapters that have their ISA Compatible I/O Port set to
"Primary" or "Alternate". This option is a workaround for systems with buggy
PCI implementations where probing or using the PCI I/O Addresses causes
problems.
o The FlashPoint DL and FlashPoint DW Host Adapters appear as two completely
separate and independent host adapters as far as the driver is concerned.
A single FlashPoint DL/DW will show up as two SCSI host adapters during
the system boot messages, and each will only report having channel 0.
o Only the host adapters registered to a particular IRQ channel are scanned
when an interrupt on that channel occurs. Previously, the driver always
scanned all host adapters whenever any interrupt was received.
o The code that attempts to identify whether an I/O address belongs to a
BusLogic MultiMaster card has been improved so that it is far less likely
that the more destructive hard reset will be attempted on a non-BusLogic
card. The new code is similar to the code used in BusLogic's BIOS to make
this same decision.
o Old BT-742A boards with firmware 2.20 should now be recognized correctly.
o Since 2.0.x kernels have now been around for quite a while, this version of
the driver no longer supports Linux 1.2.13.
