The

User's Manual

Release 0.8.0, (C) 1999

Configuration of ISA Plug&Play Cards

The following chapters will describe how you can set up your ISA plug&play adapter. Please note that we do not consider this mini HOWTO complete, nor do we guarantie that you will be able to get your card up and running under Linux by following the following steps.

1. The isapnptools package
2. The HiSax module

 

1. The isapnptools package

To be able to use Plug&Play (PnP) hardware with the current stable kernels (2.0.x Serie) the installation of the isapnptools package is highly recommended; there are alternative packages available, but we think that the isapnptools package is the most widely spread one. Thus this Handbook assumes you are using this package (current release 1.12) which is available at http://www.roestock.demon.co.uk/isapnptools/index.html.
The installation of this package does not include any magic, nevertheless you should completely read the included INSTALL file, especially if you are using a libc later than libc-5.2.18 (which is most likely the case).
After the installation was completed successfully (which has to be done as root) two new user commands are available ('binaries')namely pnpdump and isapnp.
The binary pnpdump is responsible for reading info about the cards connected to the ISA bus, the mose intuitive thing to do is to have it write its output to a file: pnpdump > /etc/isapnp.conf
Note that this requires root permissions, as you are directly accessing hardware and writing to a system folder.
The generated configuration file now contains all possible configurations of IRQs and I/O base addresses that will be accepted by every connected ISA card. With the help of /proc/interrupts and /proc/pci we can now determine, which IRQs are still free and can then distribute them among the ISA cards. There is an easier method of determining free IRQs and I/O addresses, given you have installed Microsoft Windows on another partition. E.g. under Windows '95 you will find the data of interest in "System Properties/ Device Manager/". Just click on an interesting device (isdncard), choose 'Properties/Ressources' and write down the data you need (interrupts and IO addresses of the ISDN adapter and oftentimes those of your soundcard). Now go back to Linux.
Get root permissions and edit the file /etc/isapnp.conf. Have a look at the available IRQ and I/O address combinations and choose one (just like answering a multiple choice test). You may delete the unused entries or comment them out (prepend '#'); the latter has the advantage that in case of a card detection failure you can go back and try another one. As soon as the installation was successful, however, it is recommended that you delete all unused entries. Be warned: if you run pnpdump when cards are already set up by isapnp you will probably freeze your machine...
This is the configuration file for my Elsa Quickstep 1000:

# Logical device id ELS0133
#
(CONFIGURE ELS0133/0 (LD 0
(IO 0 (BASE 0x0160))
(INT 0 (IRQ 10 (MODE +E)))
(ACT Y)
))

This script configures the card using IRQ 10 and I/O base address 0x0160. A real output would contain additional information depending on how many ISA-PnP-Karten are built into your computer, I recommend leaving these entries untouched for now - not all cards can be as easily configured as passive ISDN adapters (a Soundblaster AWE32/64 needs some additional magic before it works).
Before writing a bootscript for the isapnp call it is highly recommended that you call isapnp manually once (a critical error at boot time is usually devastating - on a booted system it is a lot less problematic): isapnp /etc/isapnp.conf
Errors added during editing (common: too many/not enough parentheses or a forgotten(ACT Y) ) will show now and can be easily corrected. As soon as that is done, you may include the isapnp call in your bootscripts, using Slackware /etc/rc.d/rc.M (Multiuser-Level) is a good place ( Debian can create a sript based on /etc/init.d/skeleton and add it using the update-rc.d command.


2. The HiSax module

kISDN can currently only load the HiSax module; for all cards not listed below, the modules will have to be loaded manually before kISDN is loaded (with all necessary parameters); documentation for the Linux ISDN driver can be found at /usr/src/linux/Documentation/isdn. Since Linux 2.0.31 the HiSax driver is integrated into the kernel sourcetree, earlier kernel versions require a patch. It is the best idea then, to patch all the way up to the latest stable kernel (now: 2.0.36) to get rid of the Teardrop bugs (for details on the kernel configuration, see the appropriate Section in this Handbook).

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T. Westheider, Ch. Demmer, Ch. Zander / January 8 1999 - kISDN Release 0.8.0