knowplace.org - wd719x Linux driver project

Western Digital 719x PCI SCSI Controller Linux Drivers Project.

IMPORTANT! (Updated 11/08/01) Well, no one really expected this, but there's now a working driver for 2.4 kernels (very alpha) by curtesy of Karen Pease.

There is a mailing list (and archive). If you need any help or want to offer help (SCSI programming), you should join the mailing list by emailing wd719x-request@knowplace.org?body=subscribe. To unsubscribe, you can email wd719x-request@knowplace.org?body=unsubscribe. Once you've joined the mailing list, you can send mail to the list at wd719x@knowplace.org.

(04/22/00) Jürgen Gärtner, bless him, has reportedly hacked together a working driver under kernel 2.2.14. This driver is based on the driver that Aaron Dewell first wrote. It is currently still in alpha stages and may hang your machine or do unpredictable stuff. PLEASE BE ADVISED OF THE RISKS IF YOU USE THIS DRIVER! You can help by downloading it and note any errors or funny behaviors and report it to the wd719x mailing list.

The Current (2.4) Source

I recently hacked the wd719x driver to work with kernel 2.4.7 (and assumedly other 2.4 versions) just by a few changes. It works for me now (I spent last night listening to mp3's that I hadn't heard in years because I couldn't use my Cheetah), and I was wondering if you'd like me to send it to you. I'll add a warning, that... well, you know how it was "very alpha" before? Well, I hardly know anything about the kernel or scsi subsystem - I got it to work by trying to get it to compile (and later, trying to get it to insmod), looking at the errors I'd get, seeing what functions were responsible, and then searching the net for people who were having the same errors in porting their drivers to 2.4, and seing what they did ;) So, in short, now its "very very alpha". Probably more alpha than it's ever been. There's a very cheap hack concerning the PROC_SCSI defines (I couldn't figure out where those get set! A grep of the whole kernel tree couldn't find a single one getting defined!), there's some usage of functions that I'm not entirely sure were proper changes (like, changing scsi_init_free to kfree), etc. But, I haven't had any trouble with it yet :) All I've tried so far is a scsi-3 hard drive, but again, I've had no problems. I'm considering burning an image of my root fs to disk (for backup - very important!) and then using my scsi drive to hold my root fs and swap space... so, if any bugs are going to come up, that should bring them up pretty quickly ;) Anyways... if you want the files, just let me know :) - Karen Pease

The 2.2 Source

Hi,

if there is still someone out there, here are good news: It works under 2.2.X
(X=14 for me).

For experienced users there is
http://schering.si.uni-hannover.de/stuff/gaertner/WD719X/Linux/devel/current/wd719x-22.03.00.tgz 

BUT BEWARE, IT'S JUST HACKED TO LOAD AND RUN UNDER 2.2.14. THERE WAS NO TESTING
YET AND SOME THINGS ARE NOT WORKING!!!

Gärti

http://sun1.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/gaertner.juergen/wd719x/Linux/4.4.1998/ (04/04/98)

Patches

You should always check http://sun1.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/gaertner.juergen/wd719x/Linux/ for the most current source code and patches.

Install directions

Please read the readme file (http://sun1.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/gaertner.juergen/wd719x/Linux/4.4.1998/readme.txt) written by Jürgen Gärtner for details!

The old project page is at http://www.neosoft.com/~traveler/WD719X.html.

History

When Western Digital sold the cards to Adaptec, Adaptec declared the cards obsolete (even though it out performs the comparable Adaptec cards). Since then, both companies has refused to support the cards (i.e. work on improving the drivers, fixing bugs, releasing new BIOS, or provide Linux drivers). If you wish to complain, you can send email to webmaster@www.wdc.com. Please note that the webmaster will not answer support questions! Another place you can also complain is on their controller message board at http://service.wdc.com/mb/user/main.html.