Note that I (the howto-maintainer) no longer use ftape myself, so I
cannot give much up-to-date advice on what hardware to buy. If you have a
problem, try posting on comp.os.linux.help, or to the tape discussion
group linux.dev.tape. This is a Usenet group that mirrors the
traffic on the mailing list linux-tape@vger.rutger.edu (see
Following the ftape development below). I encourage
reading and posting on the newsgroup, since the vger machine is
overburdened with the load of the Linux mailing lists.
You should try to post a summary of your problems and its solution(s), after
you've got it working, even if you only got it partially working. Please also
send me (<khp@dolphinics.no>) a copy of your solution so that I
can add it to the HOWTO.
I read my mail daily, I try to respond to everyone, but I cannot guarantee
that I will respond immediately. I usually read the newsgroups
(linux.dev.tape and the .kernel list), but this is subject
to the workload at my for-pay job.
If you recieve this as part of a printed distribution or on a CD-ROM, please check out the Linux Documentation home page or ftp to ftp://sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/doc/HOWTO to see if there exists a more recent version. This could potentially save you a lot of trouble.
ftapeftape is a driver program that controls various low-cost tape drives
that connect to the floppy controller.
ftape is not a backup program as such; it is a device driver, which
allows you to use the tape drive (just like the SoundBlaster 16 driver let you
use your sound card) through the device files /dev/[n]rft[0-3].
ftape is written by Bas Laarhoven <bas@vimec.nl>, with
``a little help from his friends'' to sort out the ECC (Error Correcting Code)
stuff. ftape is copyrighted by Bas under the GNU General Public
License, which basically says: ``go ahead and share this with the world, just
don't disallow other people from copying it further''.
ftape is quite stable, and has been that for some time now. Most changes is to support the new QIC-3010 and QIC-3020 (aka Tranvan) tape formats and new tape drives. It is reliable enough for critical backups (but always remember to check your backups, so you won't get a nasty surprise some day).
ftape supports drives that conform to the QIC-117 and one of the
QIC-80, QIC-40, QIC-3010, and QIC-3020 standards.
ftape support neither QIC-02, IDE (ATAPI), nor SCSI tape drives.
SCSI drives are accessed as /dev/[n]st[0-7] and are supported by the
kernel through the SCSI drivers. If you look for help on SCSI tape drives,
you should read the SCSI-howto. ATAPI tape drives are supported by
the kernel since 1.3.46. See section
Supported drives and
Un-supported drives for a list of
supported and unsupported drives.