Subject: Adaptec 274x PRE-ALPHA interim driver release #2
From: [email-masked] (John Aycock)
Date: 8 Jul 1994 16:43:58 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce

This release is GPLed, has a number of bugs fixed, and implements
disconnection and scatter-gather I/O.  Note the name change to the
"interim" driver - the reason for this is in the README:

@(#)README 1.6 94/07/05 jda

AHA274x INTERIM DRIVER

***  THIS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED PRE-ALPHA SOFTWARE.  USE AT YOUR OWN RISK  ***

BACKGROUND & LIMITATIONS

For various reasons, we ended up with one of these cards under the
impression that support was soon forthcoming.  In mid-May, I asked
Scott Ferris (the official person who's supposed to be writing this
driver) what documentation he used, _finally_ got it from Adaptec,
and started writing this driver.  It is now at what I would consider
a minimally usable state; it will be enhanced extensively in the next
two-three weeks since we need a production version yesterday, so any
feedback will be welcome, the sooner the better.

Note that Scott is still developing his driver, and when his is stable
it will supercede this one (hence the name "interim").  To help eliminate
confusion, this driver will officially remain at a "pre-alpha" level.  The
latest version can be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.cpsc.ucalgary.ca
in /pub/systems/linux/aha274x.

It supports EISA only, either single or twin-bus 274x cards (but not
the second SCSI bus of twin cards - see aha274x.c), and supports disconnection
and scatter-gather.  It does not support synchronous SCSI yet (well, I have
it working, but not in conjunction with scatter-gather), does not have
abort() or reset() implemented yet, and does not catch parity errors yet.
It is, as I said, minimally usable.

I wrote this using a 1.0.9 kernel - I have no idea if it works on any
other kernel version, sorry.  If you're using this on some other kernel
version please let me know.

Since I've gotten a lot of mail about this point, this driver will _not_
work with Adaptec 284x cards, just the 274x's.  The changes should be
trivial to make it work, but I don't have a 284x to test it with, sorry.
If someone wants to send me a patch that's great.

Under protest, this driver is subject to the GPL - see the file
COPYING for details.

INSTALLATION

0.  Make sure that the aha274x's BIOS is enabled or this WILL NOT WORK.

1.  Copy aha274x.{c,h,_seq} to /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi.  The other
	files can be ignored - they're an assembler for the sequencer's
	assembly language and the sequencer program source.
2.  Make the appropriate changes to /usr/src/linux/Makefile and
	/usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/hosts.c.
3.  Do the configuration, dependency building, and rebuilding.
4.  BACK UP YOUR KERNEL AND DATA.  I'm not kidding.
5.  Reboot.
6.  Test it and send your comments/patches/&c to "[email-masked]";
	please consider sending me mail even if you have no problems, so
	I know if someone else is using this successfully.

Sorry the instructions aren't more complete, but if you can't fill
in the extra bits then you probably shouldn't be using this yet.
:ja

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