Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

I somehow ended up with three CD-ROM drives that won't read the CD-R that 
I managed to make of SW4.0 on the 8X burner after the 2X stopped burning 
disks that anything could read.  (It helped to ignore everyone's 
instructions and put the shiny side UP not down, as there is no label or 
writing on these cheap blanks.  Blue side with numbers goes down).

One appears to have died since last used and won't read any disk in DOS or 
linux.  40X.  All the other drives 24X or faster read CD-Rs if they read 
CD-ROMS.  It acts a bit differently if there is no disk (it tells you 
that) or some disk (different message, has trouble reading it).

One probably came unplugged when my partner was plugging back in the 
floppy drive that came unplugged when we were putting back the 32MB SIMMs 
because the 64MB SIMMs only work in certain boards (this one found them as 
16MB).  It won't read anything at all in DOS or linux.  We know this is a 
good drive because we used it to replace one that only read CD-ROMs half 
the time.  (The joys of using equipment people put at the curb!).  I also 
knew the floppy cable had come unplugged because we had to replace the 
first floppy drive and I put in one that tested perfect with floppymeter.

The third one works in DOS but NOT in BL2 so I did a search on various of 
the error messages that I got during boot (there were lots of them) and 
found a few postings in kernel archives list with the exact same error 
messages and reference to a patch.  Using Kernel 2.5.43 fixed the problem 
for the poster, as did the patch.  They also installed a newer version of 
cdrecord (as recommended also by Christof).

Is 2.5.43 this a stable kernel?  Would it be better to hunt up a 2.6 
kernel of some sort, presumably the smallest one I can find as I would use 
it only for this one CD burner.  Is there some really small 2.6 kernel 
that would have support for CD-ROM modules and scsi emulation so I can use 
it only once in a while to copy CDs?

I would also need matching modules for this kernel (sr_mod, sg, ide-cd, 
ide-scsi, scsi_mod).  Does uClibc have a 2.6 kernel with modules?

The burner in question is 4x-4x-32x and came in a Compaq case with dead 
board, cpu around 700MHz, and working DVD-ROM drive.  It might postdate 
BL2 (1999).  Finally a reason to use a newer kernel.

I think Steven said it was not possible to compile a 2.4 kernel as small 
as the 2.2.16 that he compiled for BL2 or BL2 so 2.6 will probably be even 
larger no matter how small people managed to compile it, or is there some 
really minimal precompiled 2.6 kernel to which you can add the CD-burning 
modules?


keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org