Baslinux mailing list

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

> > > My next problem is that this parallel port zip drive appears not to
> > > work. It lights up, and I have it plugged into parport0 or into the
> > > printer switch box which is switched properly, but 'no ppa
> > > compatible devices found'.  This might be why it was in a dumpster.
> > >   I have one other that someone donated to the Reuse Center.  Might
> > > I be doing anything wrong? Iomega Z100P2 with the cable it came
> > > with, which looks just like the scsi cable on the scsi zip drive.
> > > 25-pin D-shell type.  Are the two types of cable wired differently?
> > >   Should I try a different cable?  This is an Iomega blue cable,
> > > labelled 'zip' but not scsi or parallel.
> >
> > Have you gotten other ZIP drives to work with ppa? Is this a ZIP
> > Plus drive? ZIP Plus needs the imm driver. You can get it from
> > Slackware 7.1. I'll have to remake the bootdisk if that's the case.
>
> I have never used a parport zip drive before.  I thought the 100MB drives 
> were all ppa and im was only for larger (later) ones.  I will look up Z100P2 
> to make sure.  I was also going to try this with the iomega DOS 'guest' 
> program as soon as I get offline.  Streaming mp3 can waste a lot of time.

It worked in DOS with the scsi driver aspi8dos needed for the scsi drive 
plus aspippm2.  There is an aspippm1 which was not used.  The drive is 
labelled zip100p2.  So this appears to be the second of two models of 
parport zip drive.  I vaguely recall reading that the 100MB scsi drives 
were all ppa and they switched from ppa to imm while making parport 
drives.

It worked with imm.o

Is there some easy way I could add imm.o to initfs.gz on the disk I made 
from blppaz.gz?  Then hopefully it would work on either type of parport 
drive (it would try to insmod ppa and if that failed imm).

The fd is only about half full and imm.o is 13K.

Could I gunzip it and simply add the file and edit some other file to 
insmod it, then gzip to initfs.gz again?

I could also replace the kernel with one that does sound, etc.  Even a 2.4 
bare.i should fit.


How would I copy this disk to a file again?  I copied from file to disk 
with dd, can I use it to copy from disk to file and gzip the result?

Iomega said linux supports zip drives from kernel 2.2.14 on.