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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-17 02:20:36 +0400
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-17 02:20:36 +0400
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tree0bba044c4ce775e45a88a51686b5d9f90697ea9d /Documentation/stallion.txt
downloadlinux-1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2.tar.xz
Linux-2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history, even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about 3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good infrastructure for it. Let it rip!
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+* NOTE - This is an unmaintained driver. Lantronix, which bought Stallion
+technologies, is not active in driver maintenance, and they have no information
+on when or if they will have a 2.6 driver.
+
+James Nelson <james4765@gmail.com> - 12-12-2004
+
+Stallion Multiport Serial Driver Readme
+---------------------------------------
+
+Copyright (C) 1994-1999, Stallion Technologies.
+
+Version: 5.5.1
+Date: 28MAR99
+
+
+
+1. INTRODUCTION
+
+There are two drivers that work with the different families of Stallion
+multiport serial boards. One is for the Stallion smart boards - that is
+EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 and EasyConnection 8/64-PCI, the other for
+the true Stallion intelligent multiport boards - EasyConnection 8/64
+(ISA, EISA, MCA), EasyConnection/RA-PCI, ONboard and Brumby.
+
+If you are using any of the Stallion intelligent multiport boards (Brumby,
+ONboard, EasyConnection 8/64 (ISA, EISA, MCA), EasyConnection/RA-PCI) with
+Linux you will need to get the driver utility package. This contains a
+firmware loader and the firmware images necessary to make the devices operate.
+
+The Stallion Technologies ftp site, ftp.stallion.com, will always have
+the latest version of the driver utility package.
+
+ftp://ftp.stallion.com/drivers/ata5/Linux/ata-linux-550.tar.gz
+
+As of the printing of this document the latest version of the driver
+utility package is 5.5.0. If a later version is now available then you
+should use the latest version.
+
+If you are using the EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 or EasyConnection 8/64-PCI
+boards then you don't need this package, although it does have a serial stats
+display program.
+
+If you require DIP switch settings, EISA or MCA configuration files, or any
+other information related to Stallion boards then have a look at Stallion's
+web pages at http://www.stallion.com.
+
+
+
+2. INSTALLATION
+
+The drivers can be used as loadable modules or compiled into the kernel.
+You can choose which when doing a "config" on the kernel.
+
+All ISA, EISA and MCA boards that you want to use need to be configured into
+the driver(s). All PCI boards will be automatically detected when you load
+the driver - so they do not need to be entered into the driver(s)
+configuration structure. Note that kernel PCI support is required to use PCI
+boards.
+
+There are two methods of configuring ISA, EISA and MCA boards into the drivers.
+If using the driver as a loadable module then the simplest method is to pass
+the driver configuration as module arguments. The other method is to modify
+the driver source to add configuration lines for each board in use.
+
+If you have pre-built Stallion driver modules then the module argument
+configuration method should be used. A lot of Linux distributions come with
+pre-built driver modules in /lib/modules/X.Y.Z/misc for the kernel in use.
+That makes things pretty simple to get going.
+
+
+2.1 MODULE DRIVER CONFIGURATION:
+
+The simplest configuration for modules is to use the module load arguments
+to configure any ISA, EISA or MCA boards. PCI boards are automatically
+detected, so do not need any additional configuration at all.
+
+If using EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 ISA or MCA, or EasyConnection 8/63-PCI
+boards then use the "stallion" driver module, Otherwise if you are using
+an EasyConnection 8/64 ISA, EISA or MCA, EasyConnection/RA-PCI, ONboard,
+Brumby or original Stallion board then use the "istallion" driver module.
+
+Typically to load up the smart board driver use:
+
+ modprobe stallion
+
+This will load the EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 driver. It will output a
+message to say that it loaded and print the driver version number. It will
+also print out whether it found the configured boards or not. These messages
+may not appear on the console, but typically are always logged to
+/var/adm/messages or /var/log/syslog files - depending on how the klogd and
+syslogd daemons are setup on your system.
+
+To load the intelligent board driver use:
+
+ modprobe istallion
+
+It will output similar messages to the smart board driver.
+
+If not using an auto-detectable board type (that is a PCI board) then you
+will also need to supply command line arguments to the modprobe command
+when loading the driver. The general form of the configuration argument is
+
+ board?=<name>[,<ioaddr>[,<addr>][,<irq>]]
+
+where:
+
+ board? -- specifies the arbitrary board number of this board,
+ can be in the range 0 to 3.
+
+ name -- textual name of this board. The board name is the common
+ board name, or any "shortened" version of that. The board
+ type number may also be used here.
+
+ ioaddr -- specifies the I/O address of this board. This argument is
+ optional, but should generally be specified.
+
+ addr -- optional second address argument. Some board types require
+ a second I/O address, some require a memory address. The
+ exact meaning of this argument depends on the board type.
+
+ irq -- optional IRQ line used by this board.
+
+Up to 4 board configuration arguments can be specified on the load line.
+Here is some examples:
+
+ modprobe stallion board0=easyio,0x2a0,5
+
+This configures an EasyIO board as board 0 at I/O address 0x2a0 and IRQ 5.
+
+ modprobe istallion board3=ec8/64,0x2c0,0xcc000
+
+This configures an EasyConnection 8/64 ISA as board 3 at I/O address 0x2c0 at
+memory address 0xcc000.
+
+ modprobe stallion board1=ec8/32-at,0x2a0,0x280,10
+
+This configures an EasyConnection 8/32 ISA board at primary I/O address 0x2a0,
+secondary address 0x280 and IRQ 10.
+
+You will probably want to enter this module load and configuration information
+into your system startup scripts so that the drivers are loaded and configured
+on each system boot. Typically the start up script would be something like
+/etc/modprobe.conf.
+
+
+2.2 STATIC DRIVER CONFIGURATION:
+
+For static driver configuration you need to modify the driver source code.
+Entering ISA, EISA and MCA boards into the driver(s) configuration structure
+involves editing the driver(s) source file. It's pretty easy if you follow
+the instructions below. Both drivers can support up to 4 boards. The smart
+card driver (the stallion.c driver) supports any combination of EasyIO and
+EasyConnection 8/32 boards (up to a total of 4). The intelligent driver
+supports any combination of ONboards, Brumbys, Stallions and EasyConnection
+8/64 (ISA and EISA) boards (up to a total of 4).
+
+To set up the driver(s) for the boards that you want to use you need to
+edit the appropriate driver file and add configuration entries.
+
+If using EasyIO or EasyConnection 8/32 ISA or MCA boards,
+ In drivers/char/stallion.c:
+ - find the definition of the stl_brdconf array (of structures)
+ near the top of the file
+ - modify this to match the boards you are going to install
+ (the comments before this structure should help)
+ - save and exit
+
+If using ONboard, Brumby, Stallion or EasyConnection 8/64 (ISA or EISA)
+boards,
+ In drivers/char/istallion.c:
+ - find the definition of the stli_brdconf array (of structures)
+ near the top of the file
+ - modify this to match the boards you are going to install
+ (the comments before this structure should help)
+ - save and exit
+
+Once you have set up the board configurations then you are ready to build
+the kernel or modules.
+
+When the new kernel is booted, or the loadable module loaded then the
+driver will emit some kernel trace messages about whether the configured
+boards were detected or not. Depending on how your system logger is set
+up these may come out on the console, or just be logged to
+/var/adm/messages or /var/log/syslog. You should check the messages to
+confirm that all is well.
+
+
+2.3 SHARING INTERRUPTS
+
+It is possible to share interrupts between multiple EasyIO and
+EasyConnection 8/32 boards in an EISA system. To do this you must be using
+static driver configuration, modifying the driver source code to add driver
+configuration. Then a couple of extra things are required:
+
+1. When entering the board resources into the stallion.c file you need to
+ mark the boards as using level triggered interrupts. Do this by replacing
+ the "0" entry at field position 6 (the last field) in the board
+ configuration structure with a "1". (This is the structure that defines
+ the board type, I/O locations, etc. for each board). All boards that are
+ sharing an interrupt must be set this way, and each board should have the
+ same interrupt number specified here as well. Now build the module or
+ kernel as you would normally.
+
+2. When physically installing the boards into the system you must enter
+ the system EISA configuration utility. You will need to install the EISA
+ configuration files for *all* the EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 boards
+ that are sharing interrupts. The Stallion EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32
+ EISA configuration files required are supplied by Stallion Technologies
+ on the EASY Utilities floppy diskette (usually supplied in the box with
+ the board when purchased. If not, you can pick it up from Stallion's FTP
+ site, ftp.stallion.com). You will need to edit the board resources to
+ choose level triggered interrupts, and make sure to set each board's
+ interrupt to the same IRQ number.
+
+You must complete both the above steps for this to work. When you reboot
+or load the driver your EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 boards will be
+sharing interrupts.
+
+
+2.4 USING HIGH SHARED MEMORY
+
+The EasyConnection 8/64-EI, ONboard and Stallion boards are capable of
+using shared memory addresses above the usual 640K - 1Mb range. The ONboard
+ISA and the Stallion boards can be programmed to use memory addresses up to
+16Mb (the ISA bus addressing limit), and the EasyConnection 8/64-EI and
+ONboard/E can be programmed for memory addresses up to 4Gb (the EISA bus
+addressing limit).
+
+The higher than 1Mb memory addresses are fully supported by this driver.
+Just enter the address as you normally would for a lower than 1Mb address
+(in the driver's board configuration structure).
+
+
+
+2.5 TROUBLE SHOOTING
+
+If a board is not found by the driver but is actually in the system then the
+most likely problem is that the I/O address is wrong. Change the module load
+argument for the loadable module form. Or change it in the driver stallion.c
+or istallion.c configuration structure and rebuild the kernel or modules, or
+change it on the board.
+
+On EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 boards the IRQ is software programmable, so
+if there is a conflict you may need to change the IRQ used for a board. There
+are no interrupts to worry about for ONboard, Brumby or EasyConnection 8/64
+(ISA, EISA and MCA) boards. The memory region on EasyConnection 8/64 and
+ONboard boards is software programmable, but not on the Brumby boards.
+
+
+
+3. USING THE DRIVERS
+
+3.1 INTELLIGENT DRIVER OPERATION
+
+The intelligent boards also need to have their "firmware" code downloaded
+to them. This is done via a user level application supplied in the driver
+utility package called "stlload". Compile this program wherever you dropped
+the package files, by typing "make". In its simplest form you can then type
+
+ ./stlload -i cdk.sys
+
+in this directory and that will download board 0 (assuming board 0 is an
+EasyConnection 8/64 or EasyConnection/RA board). To download to an
+ONboard, Brumby or Stallion do:
+
+ ./stlload -i 2681.sys
+
+Normally you would want all boards to be downloaded as part of the standard
+system startup. To achieve this, add one of the lines above into the
+/etc/rc.d/rc.S or /etc/rc.d/rc.serial file. To download each board just add
+the "-b <brd-number>" option to the line. You will need to download code for
+every board. You should probably move the stlload program into a system
+directory, such as /usr/sbin. Also, the default location of the cdk.sys image
+file in the stlload down-loader is /usr/lib/stallion. Create that directory
+and put the cdk.sys and 2681.sys files in it. (It's a convenient place to put
+them anyway). As an example your /etc/rc.d/rc.S file might have the
+following lines added to it (if you had 3 boards):
+
+ /usr/sbin/stlload -b 0 -i /usr/lib/stallion/cdk.sys
+ /usr/sbin/stlload -b 1 -i /usr/lib/stallion/2681.sys
+ /usr/sbin/stlload -b 2 -i /usr/lib/stallion/2681.sys
+
+The image files cdk.sys and 2681.sys are specific to the board types. The
+cdk.sys will only function correctly on an EasyConnection 8/64 board. Similarly
+the 2681.sys image fill only operate on ONboard, Brumby and Stallion boards.
+If you load the wrong image file into a board it will fail to start up, and
+of course the ports will not be operational!
+
+If you are using the modularized version of the driver you might want to put
+the modprobe calls in the startup script as well (before the download lines
+obviously).
+
+
+3.2 USING THE SERIAL PORTS
+
+Once the driver is installed you will need to setup some device nodes to
+access the serial ports. The simplest method is to use the /dev/MAKEDEV program.
+It will automatically create device entries for Stallion boards. This will
+create the normal serial port devices as /dev/ttyE# where# is the port number
+starting from 0. A bank of 64 minor device numbers is allocated to each board,
+so the first port on the second board is port 64,etc. A set of callout type
+devices may also be created. They are created as the devices /dev/cue# where #
+is the same as for the ttyE devices.
+
+For the most part the Stallion driver tries to emulate the standard PC system
+COM ports and the standard Linux serial driver. The idea is that you should
+be able to use Stallion board ports and COM ports interchangeably without
+modifying anything but the device name. Anything that doesn't work like that
+should be considered a bug in this driver!
+
+If you look at the driver code you will notice that it is fairly closely
+based on the Linux serial driver (linux/drivers/char/serial.c). This is
+intentional, obviously this is the easiest way to emulate its behavior!
+
+Since this driver tries to emulate the standard serial ports as much as
+possible, most system utilities should work as they do for the standard
+COM ports. Most importantly "stty" works as expected and "setserial" can
+also be used (excepting the ability to auto-configure the I/O and IRQ
+addresses of boards). Higher baud rates are supported in the usual fashion
+through setserial or using the CBAUDEX extensions. Note that the EasyIO and
+EasyConnection (all types) support at least 57600 and 115200 baud. The newer
+EasyConnection XP modules and new EasyIO boards support 230400 and 460800
+baud as well. The older boards including ONboard and Brumby support a
+maximum baud rate of 38400.
+
+If you are unfamiliar with how to use serial ports, then get the Serial-HOWTO
+by Greg Hankins. It will explain everything you need to know!
+
+
+
+4. NOTES
+
+You can use both drivers at once if you have a mix of board types installed
+in a system. However to do this you will need to change the major numbers
+used by one of the drivers. Currently both drivers use major numbers 24, 25
+and 28 for their devices. Change one driver to use some other major numbers,
+and then modify the mkdevnods script to make device nodes based on those new
+major numbers. For example, you could change the istallion.c driver to use
+major numbers 60, 61 and 62. You will also need to create device nodes with
+different names for the ports, for example ttyF# and cuf#.
+
+The original Stallion board is no longer supported by Stallion Technologies.
+Although it is known to work with the istallion driver.
+
+Finding a free physical memory address range can be a problem. The older
+boards like the Stallion and ONboard need large areas (64K or even 128K), so
+they can be very difficult to get into a system. If you have 16 Mb of RAM
+then you have no choice but to put them somewhere in the 640K -> 1Mb range.
+ONboards require 64K, so typically 0xd0000 is good, or 0xe0000 on some
+systems. If you have an original Stallion board, "V4.0" or Rev.O, then you
+need a 64K memory address space, so again 0xd0000 and 0xe0000 are good.
+Older Stallion boards are a much bigger problem. They need 128K of address
+space and must be on a 128K boundary. If you don't have a VGA card then
+0xc0000 might be usable - there is really no other place you can put them
+below 1Mb.
+
+Both the ONboard and old Stallion boards can use higher memory addresses as
+well, but you must have less than 16Mb of RAM to be able to use them. Usual
+high memory addresses used include 0xec0000 and 0xf00000.
+
+The Brumby boards only require 16Kb of address space, so you can usually
+squeeze them in somewhere. Common addresses are 0xc8000, 0xcc000, or in
+the 0xd0000 range. EasyConnection 8/64 boards are even better, they only
+require 4Kb of address space, again usually 0xc8000, 0xcc000 or 0xd0000
+are good.
+
+If you are using an EasyConnection 8/64-EI or ONboard/E then usually the
+0xd0000 or 0xe0000 ranges are the best options below 1Mb. If neither of
+them can be used then the high memory support to use the really high address
+ranges is the best option. Typically the 2Gb range is convenient for them,
+and gets them well out of the way.
+
+The ports of the EasyIO-8M board do not have DCD or DTR signals. So these
+ports cannot be used as real modem devices. Generally, when using these
+ports you should only use the cueX devices.
+
+The driver utility package contains a couple of very useful programs. One
+is a serial port statistics collection and display program - very handy
+for solving serial port problems. The other is an extended option setting
+program that works with the intelligent boards.
+
+
+
+5. DISCLAIMER
+
+The information contained in this document is believed to be accurate and
+reliable. However, no responsibility is assumed by Stallion Technologies
+Pty. Ltd. for its use, nor any infringements of patents or other rights
+of third parties resulting from its use. Stallion Technologies reserves
+the right to modify the design of its products and will endeavour to change
+the information in manuals and accompanying documentation accordingly.
+