Installation of Parallel Port IDE Devices with Linux Kernel 2.0.36 or Higher

Support knowledgebase (bk_paride)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Versions since 6.0
Kernel: Version 2.0.36

Situation:

Installation of a device equipped with an IDE CONTROLLER at the parallel port.

Introduction:

Due to the simplicity and the universality of the parallel port on the PC, many external devices such as external non removable disks, CD-ROMs, LS-120, and magnetic tape drives use the parallel port.

The adaptor chip reproduces a small IDE device in the external unit and makes available both reading and writting unit register operations and data block transfer functions in the communication protocol.

Currently supported devices (version: Jan 24, 1998):


     MicroSolutions backpack CD-ROM 
     MicroSolutions backpack PD/CD 
     MicroSolutions backpack hard-drives 
     SyQuest EZ-135, EZ-230 & SparQ drives 
     Avatar Shark 
     Imation Superdisk LS-120 
     FreeCom Power CD 
     FreeCom Traveller CD 
     Maxell SuperDisk LS-120 
     Hewlett-Packard 5GB tape drive 
     Hewlett-Packard 7100 and 7200 CD-RW drives

as well as the most clones and no-name devices within this range.

This document does not apply to port SCSI devices (e.g. ZIP drive, Streamer, or scanner with parallel port - SCSI controller)

Procedure:

Read the documentation in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/paride.txt.

The current references can be found at http://www.torque.net/parport/paride.html.

An additional tip:

Always use modprobe instead of insmod, since modprobe ensures that the modules needed by the module we are going to load will also be loaded.

Thus, simply enter:

modprobe pf
and you should get these messages in /var/log/messages:
Jan 28 01:35:01 Bari kernel: paride: version 1.02 installed
Jan 28 01:35:01 Bari kernel: pf: pf version 1.03s, major 47, cluster 64, nice 0
etc.
Keywords: PARIDE, PARALLEL, 2.0.36, LS-120

SDB-bk_paride, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 21. Mai 2002
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 28. Mai 2002 by ip (sdb_gen 1.40.0)