Re: PCMCIA not working on Panasonic Toughbook CF-29

From: Dominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net>
To: "Michael ." <keltoiboy@gmail.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Morgan Klym <moklym@gmail.com>,
	Trevor Jacobs <trevor_jacobs@aol.com>,
	Kris Cleveland <tridentperfusion@yahoo.com>,
	Jeff <bluerocksaddles@willitsonline.com>
Subject: Re: PCMCIA not working on Panasonic Toughbook CF-29
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 08:48:01 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20191015064801.GA104469@owl.dominikbrodowski.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAFjuqNjLJw8J0nU2oo8rDfDUBavHLC7D0=AAwM62tp6=kHHk-A@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 05:04:28PM +1100, Michael . wrote:
> Good afternoon kernel developers
> Please accept my apology for contacting you directly about this. A
> small group of friends, some of whom are CCed here, have come together
> to try and find a solution to a problem that originated with the
> demise of kernel 2.6:32. First some background to the issue. We are
> all users of Panasonic Toughbook CF-29 models (ranging from Mark 1
> through to Mark 5). These Toughbooks have 2 PCMCIA card slots which
> are used by a variety of people for different purposes. On the CF-29
> Mark 1 through to Mark 3 these slots work without problem. On the
> CF-29 Mark 4 and Mark 5 the last known kernel the top slot worked with
> was 2.6:32. This has been confirmed all all major distros by most of
> the small group of friends I mentioned earlier.
> 
> Thinking it was just a kernel config issue I did some comparisons
> between Debian 6 (Squeeze), Debian 7 (Wheezy), Ubuntu 10.04, and
> Ubuntu 10.10. On all machines both slots functioned as they should
> with Debian 6 and Ubuntu 10.04 but the top slot stopped working on
> Mark 4 and Mark 5 machines on the next release with the next kernel. I
> also tested Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 with the 2.6:32 and 2.6:35 kernel
> and both slots worked with the 2.6:32 kernel but not the 2.6:35
> kernel.With my comparisons I merged the config from 2.6:32 into the
> current kernel for Debian 4.19 and rebuilt the kernel, no matter what
> configuration changes I made the top slot still doesn't function on
> Mark 4 and Mark 5 machines.
> 
> This issue, and its apparent start, has been confirmed on all major
> distro family groups. So this brings me, actually the small group of
> dedicated Linux users who own Panasonic Toughbook CF-29s, to contact
> you to ask for help in resolving this issue. I have some questions,
> and I realise the 2.6:32 kernel is long gone now but I'm hoping this
> is not a lost cause, what changes would have occurred between 2.6:32
> and 2.6:33 that would have stopped the hardware working on Mark 4 and
> Mark 5 CF-29 Toughbooks but not Mark 1 through to Mark 3? Would it be
> possible to correct the problem so that the hardware on our machines
> works as it should. While we are not kernel devs or even programmers
> we are enthusiasts who love Linux and our machines and we are hoping
> that together with you and the kernel dev group we can fix this issue
> together.
> 
> I have attached various tar.gz files with ls* outputs so you can see
> the information we have so far. Thank you for taking the time to read
> this.

Is this with 16-bit PCMCIA cards, or with 32-bit CardBus cards? Either case,
please provide the output of

	dmesg

	lspci -vvv

and

	lspcmcia -v -v

(ideally all for a working and non-working configuration).

Thanks,
	Dominik