The best way to submit bug reports is to use the HyperNews message lists on the Linux PCMCIA information site. That way, other people can see current problems (and fixes or workarounds, if available). Here are some things that should be included in all bug reports:
probe command./etc/pcmcia, or to the PCMCIA startup script.Before submitting a bug report, please check to make sure that you are using an up-to-date copy of the driver package. While it is somewhat gratifying to read bug reports for things I've already fixed, it isn't a particularly constructive use of my time.
If your problem involves a kernel fault, the register dump from the
fault is only useful if you can track down the fault address, EIP. If
it is in the main kernel, look up the address in System.map to
identify the function at fault. If the fault is in a loadable module,
it is a bit harder to trace. With the current module tools,
``ksyms -m'' will report the base address of each loadable
module. Pick the module that contains the EIP address, and subtract
its base address from EIP to get an offset inside that module. Then,
run gdb on that module, and look up the offset with the list
command. This will only work if you've compiled that module with
-g to include debugging information.
If you do not have web access, bug reports can be sent to me at
dhinds@hyper.stanford.edu. However, I prefer that bug reports be
posted to my web site, so that they can be seen by others.
The PCMCIA modules contain a lot of conditionally-compiled debugging
code. Most of this code is under control of the PCMCIA_DEBUG
preprocessor define. If this is undefined, debugging code will
not be compiled. If set to 0, the code is compiled but inactive.
Larger numbers specify increasing levels of verbosity. Each module
built with PCMCIA_DEBUG defined will have an integer parameter,
pc_debug, that controls the verbosity of its output. This
can be adjusted when the module is loaded, so output can be controlled
on a per-module basis without recompiling.
There are a few debugging tools in the debug_tools/
subdirectory of the PCMCIA distribution. The dump_tcic and
dump_i365 utilities generate complete register dumps of the
PCMCIA controllers, and decode a lot of the register information.
They are most useful if you have access to a datasheet for the
corresponding controller chip. The dump_tuples utility lists a
card's CIS (Card Information Structure), and decodes some of the
important bits. And the dump_cisreg utility displays a card's
local configuration registers.
The pcmem_cs memory card driver is also sometimes useful for
debugging. It can be bound to any PCMCIA card, and does not interfere
with other drivers. It can be used to directly access any card's
attribute memory or common memory.
The Linux PCMCIA Programmer's Guide is the best documentation for the
Linux PCMCIA interface. The latest version is always available from
hyper.stanford.edu in /pub/pcmcia/doc, or on the web at
http://hyper.stanford.edu/HyperNews/get/pcmcia/home.html.
For devices that are close relatives of normal ISA devices, you'll probably be able to use parts of existing Linux drivers. In some cases, the biggest stumbling block will be modifying an existing driver so that it can handle adding and removing devices after boot time. Of the current drivers, the memory card driver is the only ``self-contained'' driver that does not depend on other parts of the Linux kernel to do most of the dirty work.
I've written a skeleton driver with lots of comments that explains a
lot of how a driver communicates with Card Services; you'll find this
in the PCMCIA source distribution in modules/skeleton.c.