Re: CD-ROM under Linux on ThinkPad755CD

[pepersb@cuug.ab.ca (Brad Pepers)]

> The CD-ROM does not work properly under Linux 2.3.0. Someone mentioned that
> the message "buffer botched" appears in /var/adm/messages. Also, doing
> 'ls /cdrom' will produce a trunctated listing of files on at least one
> of my compact disks. I also noticed that X will not start when CD-ROM
> is in its bay.

I just received my Caldera CD and tried to load it last night.  It blew
up all over the place and I was quite mad a Caldera till I figured out
that the CDROM drive wasn't working (trying to run an executable off
the cd that only gets partially loaded causes many segfaults!).  I
basically found the same results as you.  The Caldera CD shows up fine
when I do an ls in some directories but with others it only shows some
of the files the first time, some the second time, and then finally all
of them.  Also, as I said, executables don't always load right!  Here
is some info I've gleaned from the /var/adm/messages file:

Bootup messages:

Aug  3 11:27:25 kikass kernel: hda: DVAA-2810, 773MB w/32KB Cache, LBA, CHS=785/32/63, MaxMult=16
Aug  3 11:27:25 kikass kernel: hdc: DC4-E0, ATAPI, CDROM drive
Aug  3 11:27:25 kikass kernel: ide1: secondary interface on irq 15
Aug  3 11:27:25 kikass kernel: ide0: primary interface on irq 14

Error messages:

Aug 25 11:20:14 kikass kernel: hdc: DRDY error: status=0x80
Aug 25 11:20:14 kikass kernel: ide1: do_ide_reset: success
Aug 25 11:20:17 kikass kernel: hdc: cdrom_read_from_buffer: buffer botch (1551)
Aug 25 11:20:17 kikass kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 1600, sector 1551
Aug 25 11:20:17 kikass kernel: hdc: cdrom_read_from_buffer: buffer botch (1551)
Aug 25 11:20:17 kikass kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 1600, sector 1551
...

Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: media changed
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: status error: status=0x59
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: status error: error=0x64
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: ide1: do_ide_reset: success
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: VFS: Disk change detected on device 22/0
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: cdrom_decode_status: status=0x41
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: cdrom_decode_status: error=0x54
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: status error: status=0x49
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: status error: error=0x54
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: ide1: do_ide_reset: success
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: cdrom_decode_status: status=0x41
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: cdrom_decode_status: error=0x54
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: status error: status=0x49
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: status error: error=0x54
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: ide1: do_ide_reset: success
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: cdrom_decode_status: status=0x41
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: hdc: cdrom_decode_status: error=0x54
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 1600, sector 64
Aug  3 11:27:33 kikass kernel: isofs_read_super: bread failed, dev 0x1600 iso_blknum 16
Aug  3 11:27:37 kikass kernel: Unable to identify CD-ROM format.

A possibly related problem is that when I had the CDROM in my Thinkpad,
my PCMCIA Ethernet card (GVC NE2000 compat) was going nuts and I geting
errors.  When I switched the Ethernet card to the second PCMCIA socket,
all was fine!  The errors were:

Aug  3 11:19:49 kikass kernel: UDP: bad checksum. From C0A80101:513 to C0A801FF:513 ulen 236
Aug  3 11:19:54 kikass kernel: ICMP: failed checksum from 192.168.1.1!
Aug  3 11:20:27 kikass last message repeated 8 times
Aug  3 11:21:08 kikass last message repeated 8 times
Aug  3 11:21:10 kikass kernel: UDP: bad checksum. From C0A80101:520 to C0A801FF:520 ulen 52
Aug  3 11:21:10 kikass kernel: ICMP: failed checksum from 192.168.1.1!
Aug  3 11:21:40 kikass last message repeated 8 times
Aug  3 11:21:40 kikass kernel: UDP: short packet: 631/52
Aug  3 11:21:41 kikass kernel: ICMP: failed checksum from 192.168.1.1!

> It seems to me that someone posted a message suggesting that an
> upgrade of the ide-cd.c device driver cures the problem, but I cannot
> find the mail message.  I would appreciate if someone posted a
> procedure for fixing the bug.

I would also like to find this.  Various things I'm going to try are
to boot up in dos first (maybe the dos drivers will do some init to
make it work better?), disable pcmcia stuff (maybe there is a conflict
there?), and look at whats been changed in the ide source code since
the version I'm using (kernel 1.2.11).  I hope I find it so I can load
Caldera!

> Thank you.
> -- Marek R. Rychlik

Let me know if you figure anything out!

+----------------------------Ren & Stimpy--------------------------------+
| "Psst. Hey Guido. It's all so clear to me now. I'm the keeper of the   |
| cheese. And you're the lemon merchant. Get it? And he knows it. That's |
| why he's gonna kill us. So we gotta beat it. Yeah. Before he lets      |
| loose the marmosets on us! Don't worry, little missy! I'll save you!"  |
+------------------ Brad Pepers -- pepersb@cuug.ab.ca -------------------+