PCMCIA broken (was Re: no ndis* at cardbus?)

[Iain Hibbert <plunky%rya-online.net@localhost>]

On Wed, 11 Feb 2009, Christos Zoulas wrote:

> In article <200902110344.n1B3iPrS022285%vtn1.victoria.tc.ca@localhost>,
> John Nemeth <jnemeth%victoria.tc.ca@localhost> wrote:
> >
> >     It's on my project list to do something about this.  Right now,
> >16-bit PC Card (commonly known as "PCMCIA") is broken.  And, as you
> >note, CardBus is fragile.
>
> Right now all 16 bit pcmcia cards that I have are broken. I think this
> should be fixed before 5.0 is released.

As a data point, I have been trying to get some 16-bit PC cards[1] working
on a Thinkpad T60[2] with 5.0_RC1. So far as I can tell, adjusting
RBUS_IO_BASE can help.

        RBUS_IO_BASE = 0x4000   # default, does not work
        RBUS_IO_BASE = 0x0a00   # works.

but there is more than that, because although just adjusting the base
downwards made the 16-bit cards work, at least one 32-bit card that I have
(a USB2.0 card I think with VIA chips) caused a panic on insertion but I
didn't write the reason down[3]

I don't understand enough about rbus to say if a better base value would
be better, and if anybody had the knowledge to fix it for 5.0 that would
be really chocolateworthy.

iain

[1] I have a CompactFlash, a wi(4) and a bt3c(4)

[2] It uses a TI PC1510 PCI-Cardbus bridge.

[3] I haven't worked out how to make the message buffer persist through a
    reboot on this machine yet