How do I know whether a specific driver being used?

How do I know whether a specific driver being used?

[xp newbie]

I am using an Ubuntu system with kernel 2.6.15-27-686.

I am trying to find out whether I need to compile
myself a driver for my Promise FastTrack 378
controller as described here:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=362780

But before doing so, I prefer to know in advance (if
possible) whether this module is already included in
(and perhaps used by) the kernel.

The instructions in the README file for building this
particular driver say:

------- START QUOTE -------
7.) Copy this module to
/lib/modules/2.4.x/kernel/drivers/scsi/

    

8.) Issue "cat /proc/scsi/ft3xx/x" (x is a SCSI host
number) to get the
 RAID array status.

------- END QUOTE -------

Due to different kernel I am using, the path is of
course different, so I listed the modules in:

/lib/modules/2.6.15-27-686/kernel/drivers/scsi/ 

and found no ft3xx entry.

However, I did find a promising entry (no pun
intended):

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  16219 2006-09-15 23:49
sata_promise.ko

I then did "ls -l /proc/scsi/sata_promise" and
received:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2006-11-04 22:23 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2006-11-04 22:23 1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2006-11-04 22:23 2

a 'cat' on any of these "files" yields the message:

"The driver does not yet support the proc-fs"

Please note that I am using this Promise controller to
connect to a single PATA drive, not SATA.

The relevant part in my dmesg reads:

[17179575.120000] sata_promise PATA port found
[17179575.136000] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd
0xF8866200 ctl 0xF8866238 bmdma 0x0 irq 169
[17179575.140000] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd
0xF8866280 ctl 0xF88662B8 bmdma 0x0 irq 169
[17179575.140000] ata3: PATA max UDMA/133 cmd
0xF8866300 ctl 0xF8866338 bmdma 0x0 irq 169
[17179575.344000] ata1: no device found (phy stat
00000000)
[17179575.344000] scsi0 : sata_promise
[17179575.552000] ata2: no device found (phy stat
00000000)
[17179575.552000] scsi1 : sata_promise
[17179575.728000] ata3: dev 0 cfg 00:045a 49:2f00
82:346b 83:7f01 84:4003 85:3c69 86:3c01 87:4003
88:407f 93:600b
[17179575.728000] ata3: dev 0 ATA-7, max UDMA/133,
312581808 sectors: LBA48
[17179575.728000] ata3: dev 0 configured for UDMA/133
[17179575.728000] sata_get_dev_handle: SATA dev
addr=0x40000, handle=0x00000000
[17179575.728000] scsi2 : sata_promise
[17179575.728000]   Vendor: ATA       Model: SAMSUNG
SP1614N   Rev: TM10
[17179575.728000]   Type:   Direct-Access             
        ANSI SCSI revision: 05
[17179575.732000] Driver 'sd' needs updating - please
use bus_type methods
[17179575.732000] SCSI device sda: 312581808 512-byte
hdwr sectors (160042 MB)
[17179575.732000] SCSI device sda: drive cache: write
back
[17179575.732000] SCSI device sda: 312581808 512-byte
hdwr sectors (160042 MB)
[17179575.732000] SCSI device sda: drive cache: write
back
[17179575.732000]  sda: sda2 sda3 sda4 < sda5 sda6 >
[17179575.780000] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda


How do I decipher all this information so that I can
tell whether I am using the correct driver for this
particular part of my hardware or not?

Is it possible that "the right driver" is already
there and I don't have to compile anything? :)

Thanks!
Alex










 
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Re: How do I know whether a specific driver being used?

[Miguel Ojeda]

On 11/5/06, xp newbie <xp_newbie@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am using an Ubuntu system with kernel 2.6.15-27-686.
>
> I am trying to find out whether I need to compile
> myself a driver for my Promise FastTrack 378
> controller as described here:
>
> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=362780
>

This mailing list is about kernel development, this is not the right
place to ask that. Anyway, 3rd party kernels, patches, drivers... are
not covered here.

> But before doing so, I prefer to know in advance (if
> possible) whether this module is already included in
> (and perhaps used by) the kernel.
>

Did you browse menuconfig?

> [...]

Re: How do I know whether a specific driver being used?

[xp newbie]

--- Miguel Ojeda <maxextreme@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This mailing list is about kernel development, this
> is not the right
> place to ask that. Anyway, 3rd party kernels,
> patches, drivers... are
> not covered here.
> 

I appologize for sending to the wrong mailing list.
Could you please refer me to the correct
newsgroup/forum/mailinglist?

Please note that I have already tried
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/ but the folks seem to be
confused like me (regarding this particular issue).

More specifically, there is confusion between the
following statement:

http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/kernel-patch-2.4-fasttraks150

And the fact that my system shows the following:

~> lsmod | grep promise
sata_promise           12516  8
libata                 83440  1 sata_promise
scsi_mod              145960  6
sr_mod,sbp2,sg,sd_mod,sata_promise,libata

Do you know what the best place to ask such question?

Thanks!
Alex

P.S. I didn't browse menuconfig, because I am not
there yet. It's like the chicken-and-the-egg
situation: I am using Ubuntu which conceptually
exempts me from the need to compile kernel modules and
thus menuconfig is not even installed by default.
Since (thanks to Arjan's reply) I am pretty sure now
that the driver is included in the distribution, I
hope that no compilation is needed.

P.S.2 If I discover something that IMHO points to a
bug in the kernel, where do I post it?



 
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Re: How do I know whether a specific driver being used?

[Miguel Ojeda]

On 11/5/06, xp newbie <xp_newbie@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Miguel Ojeda <maxextreme@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > This mailing list is about kernel development, this
> > is not the right
> > place to ask that. Anyway, 3rd party kernels,
> > patches, drivers... are
> > not covered here.
> >
>
> I appologize for sending to the wrong mailing list.
> Could you please refer me to the correct
> newsgroup/forum/mailinglist?
>
> Please note that I have already tried
> http://www.ubuntuforums.org/ but the folks seem to be
> confused like me (regarding this particular issue).
>
> More specifically, there is confusion between the
> following statement:
>
> http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/kernel-patch-2.4-fasttraks150
>

Usually, when you have a problem with some program, you ask the
developer about the bug you have found (or whatever). So you should
ask Ubuntu folks, because the kernels you are using are a "fork" of
the mailine kernel. They add a lot of 3rd party stuff along other
things, so they are the ones who need to solve their problems. I'm
sure there is someone at Ubuntu that can help you for future problems.

> And the fact that my system shows the following:
>
> ~> lsmod | grep promise
> sata_promise           12516  8
> libata                 83440  1 sata_promise
> scsi_mod              145960  6
> sr_mod,sbp2,sg,sd_mod,sata_promise,libata
>
> Do you know what the best place to ask such question?
>
> Thanks!
> Alex
>
> P.S. I didn't browse menuconfig, because I am not
> there yet. It's like the chicken-and-the-egg
> situation: I am using Ubuntu which conceptually
> exempts me from the need to compile kernel modules and
> thus menuconfig is not even installed by default.
> Since (thanks to Arjan's reply) I am pretty sure now
> that the driver is included in the distribution, I
> hope that no compilation is needed.
>

Well, you can browse menuconfig without compile the kernel at all...
Just for check if some driver is already in. Anyway, Ubuntu kernels
aren't the mailine ones and they have more drivers.

> P.S.2 If I discover something that IMHO points to a
> bug in the kernel, where do I post it?
>

If you discover a bug in the Ubuntu kernel, you should report it to
Ubuntu developers. Their kernels are "old" and very patched so they
are pretty different. Only report here if the bug appears in the
lastest mainline kernels (like 2.6.18 or 2.6.18.1 right now...).

Anyway, you can always use the lastest official kernel from
www.kernel.org ;-) so if you find a bug you can be sure to report it
here.

Re: How do I know whether a specific driver being used?

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Sat, 2006-11-04 at 19:30 -0800, xp newbie wrote:
> I am using an Ubuntu system with kernel 2.6.15-27-686.
> 
> I am trying to find out whether I need to compile
> myself a driver for my Promise FastTrack 378
> controller as described here:
> 
> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=362780

Hi,

no you don't need those drivers; the linux kernel and the dmraid
userspace program have everything you need, no need to add weird
external (and sometimes proprietary) drivers to support your
software/bios raid

Greetings,
   Arjan van de Ven