more about PCMCIA

[Peter Stuge]

Hello Karolina,

On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 03:15:54PM +0200, Karolina Rybak wrote:
> Anybody could suggest the best PCMCIA for Linux?
> 
> Any opinions which one to choose and why it is better than others?
> 
> I would be greatful for your help.

Answering this is difficult without knowing more about your reason
for asking. The question is pretty vague.

"PCMCIA" is a bus interface, it standardizes a connector, plug-in card
behavior and form factor and more. In the Linux kernel scope there is
a PCMCIA API used by drivers for PCMCIA controllers and cards.

If you are looking for a PCMCIA controller to include in a system
that your are designing we could probably help but I would also
suggest looking at the kernel sources for a list of supported
controllers. (There is a known issue with Ricoh RL5C476 controllers
that may be a hardware problem so you may want to investigate that if
you're looking at that particular part.)

If you are looking for a PCMCIA plug-in card you would need to say
what type of card in order to get some suggestions. Note that PCMCIA
plug-in cards are rare these days, rather Cardbus plug-in cards are
the norm because of their higher performance. Cardbus does require a
Cardbus controller, and a PCI bus in the machine.

If you are looking for the right software packages to use in a
GNU/Linux system in order to get both PCMCIA and Cardbus plug-in
cards to work the answer is that for 2.4 kernels you need the
pcmcia-cs package from your distribution or from sourceforge, while
for 2.6 you need udev which is already a central component in several
distributions. With 2.6 it's also useful to install the pcmciautils
package.

Hope this helps. If not, please tell us more about what you are doing
and why.


//Peter