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6.3: Load time configuration

ftape-3.04d allows load time configuration of I/O-port, interrupt and dma channel. This has been achieved by transforming the preprocessor symbols FDC_BASE, FDC_DMA, FDC_IRQ, PROBE_FC10 and MACH2 to global variables which have the names

ft_fdc_base
ft_fdc_dma
ft_fdc_irq
ft_probe_fc10
ft_mach2

To set the values of these variables with insmod, one has to use the following command (configuration for Colorado FC-10/FC-20 card):

insmod ftape ft_probe_fc10=1 ft_fdc_base=0x180 ft_fdc_irq=9 ft_fdc_dma=3

It is also possible to tune the amount of debugging output ftape prints to the system log files (see MTSETDENSITY). The following would disable (nearly) all debugging output from the ftape module:

insmod ftape ft_tracing=0

Of course, the settings you specify at the command line must match your hardware setup (see FDC_OPT). It is convenient to add those hardware options to the file /etc/conf.modules and use modprobe for loading the driver. In the above example, one would have to add the following to /etc/conf.modules:

options ftape ft_probe_fc10=1 ft_fdc_base=0x180 ft_fdc_irq=9 ft_fdc_dma=3

There are two additional module parameters that might be useful when you have problems with `reduced data rate because of excessive overrun errors' messages. The first one is ft_fdc_threshold. It takes values between 1 and 16. Higher values reduce the number of overrun errors slightly. However, this seems to have only a little effect. The other variable ft_fdc_rate_limit can be used to reduce the data rate a priori. This is useful when you know that you will get lots of overrun errors so that the driver would reduce the data rate anyway. Valid values for ft_fdc_rate_limit are one 1000, 500 or 250.

The essence of all of the above is that one needs no longer recompile ftape when using it with different hardware setups.

Please refer also to the next section. See Insmod ftape on what else might be useful to add to /etc/conf.modules.


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