Please help if u can.

Please help if u can.

[John Scarpa]

Dear Luben,

I am trying to compile the aic94xx for my aic9410 directly into my 
kernel (fc5_64bit-2.6.20)...  Is this possible or must it be loaded as a 
module?  I am really not wanting to add modular support to my nice neat 
monolithic kernel.. :-(  I've been searching for ever now and tried 
everything i could to no avail..

--->Log
aic94xx: Adaptec aic94xx SAS/SATA driver version 1.0.2 loaded
aic94xx: found Adaptec AIC-9410W SAS/SATA Host Adapter, device 0000:04:02.0
scsi0 : aic94xx
aic94xx: Failed to load sequencer firmware file aic94xx-seq.fw, error -2
aic94xx: couldn't init seqs for 0000:04:02.0
aic94xx: couldn't init the chip

--->Specs
FC5_64bit 2.6.20
Supermicro 6025B-3 Server Model



Thank you for any help!  btw this is the first time i ever wrote a 
maintainer for help... my pride is definitely hurting right now...

Best wishes,
John Scarpa

Re: Please help if u can.

[Douglas Gilbert]

John Scarpa wrote:
> Dear Luben,
> 
> I am trying to compile the aic94xx for my aic9410 directly into my
> kernel (fc5_64bit-2.6.20)...  Is this possible or must it be loaded as a
> module?  I am really not wanting to add modular support to my nice neat
> monolithic kernel.. :-(  I've been searching for ever now and tried
> everything i could to no avail..
> 
> --->Log
> aic94xx: Adaptec aic94xx SAS/SATA driver version 1.0.2 loaded
> aic94xx: found Adaptec AIC-9410W SAS/SATA Host Adapter, device 0000:04:02.0
> scsi0 : aic94xx
> aic94xx: Failed to load sequencer firmware file aic94xx-seq.fw, error -2
> aic94xx: couldn't init seqs for 0000:04:02.0
> aic94xx: couldn't init the chip
> 
> --->Specs
> FC5_64bit 2.6.20
> Supermicro 6025B-3 Server Model
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you for any help!  btw this is the first time i ever wrote a
> maintainer for help... my pride is definitely hurting right now...

John,
You have touched a rather sore point. The source files
in the aic94xx driver found in lk 2.6.20 start like this:

/*
 * Aic94xx SAS/SATA driver header file.
 *
 * Copyright (C) 2005 Adaptec, Inc.  All rights reserved.
 * Copyright (C) 2005 Luben Tuikov <luben_tuikov@adaptec.com>
 *
 * This file is licensed under GPLv2.


It would be reasonable to assume that Luben is the maintainer
of this code although the MAINTAINERS file has no entry
for the aic94xx driver.

This code was effectively removed from Luben's control
about 18 months ago and has passed through several sets
of hands since then. None of the people concerned want
to identify themselves in the source or explain
what has been done in writing. Why?

The existing copyright notices should remain but what
about the massive changes to that driver in 2006?
Where is the indication of whom John should contact?
Perhaps something like:
 "For maintenance of this driver contact
  linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org"


FYI John, Luben maintains his own version of the
aic94xx and that version holds the sequencer firmware
in a binary blob within the driver. Due to kernel policy,
that blob was moved to separate file by someone else. The
error that you are reporting suggests that the firmware
file for the aic94xx cannot be found. On my system
the file that you may be missing looks like this:
# ls -l /lib/firmware/aic94xx-seq.fw
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 22622 Aug 29 17:36 /lib/firmware/aic94xx-seq.fw


Doug Gilbert

Re: Please help if u can.

[Darrick J. Wong]

Douglas Gilbert wrote:

> It would be reasonable to assume that Luben is the maintainer
> of this code although the MAINTAINERS file has no entry
> for the aic94xx driver.
> 
> This code was effectively removed from Luben's control
> about 18 months ago and has passed through several sets
> of hands since then. None of the people concerned want
> to identify themselves in the source or explain
> what has been done in writing. Why?

Laziness, in my case.  I suppose it would be useful to document the fact
that I've made changes to libsas/aic94xx.  Though the "what has been
done" part ... I was hoping the commit messages would suffice.

> The existing copyright notices should remain but what
> about the massive changes to that driver in 2006?
> Where is the indication of whom John should contact?
>
> Perhaps something like:
>  "For maintenance of this driver contact
>   linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org"

Alexis can answer this part.

> FYI John, Luben maintains his own version of the
> aic94xx and that version holds the sequencer firmware
> in a binary blob within the driver. Due to kernel policy,
> that blob was moved to separate file by someone else. The
> error that you are reporting suggests that the firmware
> file for the aic94xx cannot be found. On my system
> the file that you may be missing looks like this:
> # ls -l /lib/firmware/aic94xx-seq.fw
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 22622 Aug 29 17:36 /lib/firmware/aic94xx-seq.fw

http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jejb/aic94xx-seq.fw

--D

Re: Please help if u can.

[John Scarpa]

First a very big thanks to all of u! I have been suffering a serious 
lack of sleep problem lately..  i should have noticed that by whom has 
been submitting the past 500 fixes and updates!

Quick question, is the driver still consider experimental?? the guys i 
work with say it doesn't support sata drives and it's still experimental 
so don't use it.  And i can't find anything on the state of this driver.

PS.  I should have said i dropped that aic94xx-seq.fw in /lib,/lib/firmware,/lib64,/lib64/firmware  (still have yet to get this sucker to work)

Thanks much again though for your time!!!

John



Darrick J. Wong wrote:
> Douglas Gilbert wrote:
>
>   
>> It would be reasonable to assume that Luben is the maintainer
>> of this code although the MAINTAINERS file has no entry
>> for the aic94xx driver.
>>
>> This code was effectively removed from Luben's control
>> about 18 months ago and has passed through several sets
>> of hands since then. None of the people concerned want
>> to identify themselves in the source or explain
>> what has been done in writing. Why?
>>     
>
> Laziness, in my case.  I suppose it would be useful to document the fact
> that I've made changes to libsas/aic94xx.  Though the "what has been
> done" part ... I was hoping the commit messages would suffice.
>
>   
>> The existing copyright notices should remain but what
>> about the massive changes to that driver in 2006?
>> Where is the indication of whom John should contact?
>>
>> Perhaps something like:
>>  "For maintenance of this driver contact
>>   linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org"
>>     
>
> Alexis can answer this part.
>
>   
>> FYI John, Luben maintains his own version of the
>> aic94xx and that version holds the sequencer firmware
>> in a binary blob within the driver. Due to kernel policy,
>> that blob was moved to separate file by someone else. The
>> error that you are reporting suggests that the firmware
>> file for the aic94xx cannot be found. On my system
>> the file that you may be missing looks like this:
>> # ls -l /lib/firmware/aic94xx-seq.fw
>> -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 22622 Aug 29 17:36 /lib/firmware/aic94xx-seq.fw
>>     
>
> http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jejb/aic94xx-seq.fw
>
> --D
>   

Re: Please help if u can.

[Darrick J. Wong]

John Scarpa wrote:
> First a very big thanks to all of u! I have been suffering a serious
> lack of sleep problem lately..  i should have noticed that by whom has
> been submitting the past 500 fixes and updates!
> 
> Quick question, is the driver still consider experimental??

Very much so.  The SAS bits are fairly stable nowadays, but the rest is
still YMWV. :)

> the guys i
> work with say it doesn't support sata drives and it's still experimental

SATA support is under development.  Patches exist in the git tree here:
http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/jejb/aic94xx-sas-2.6.git;a=summary

> so don't use it.  And i can't find anything on the state of this driver.
> 
> PS.  I should have said i dropped that aic94xx-seq.fw in
> /lib,/lib/firmware,/lib64,/lib64/firmware  (still have yet to get this
> sucker to work)

Yes, you need a udev that's new enough to know how to handle the
firmware loading interface.  Typically, udev will load firmware from
/lib/firmware, though I suppose that depends on the distribution.  Not
sure if RH/Fedora support fw loading, newer Ubuntu-E and SuSE do...

--D

Re: Please help if u can.

[Aravind Parchuri]

djwong@us.ibm.com wrote:
> John Scarpa wrote:
>   
>> First a very big thanks to all of u! I have been suffering a serious
>> lack of sleep problem lately..  i should have noticed that by whom has
>> been submitting the past 500 fixes and updates!
>>
>> Quick question, is the driver still consider experimental??
>>     
>
> Very much so.  The SAS bits are fairly stable nowadays, but the rest is
> still YMWV. :)
>
>   
>> the guys i
>> work with say it doesn't support sata drives and it's still experimental
>>     
>
> SATA support is under development.  Patches exist in the git tree here:
> http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/jejb/aic94xx-sas-2.6.git;a=summary
>
>   
>> so don't use it.  And i can't find anything on the state of this driver.
>>
>> PS.  I should have said i dropped that aic94xx-seq.fw in
>> /lib,/lib/firmware,/lib64,/lib64/firmware  (still have yet to get this
>> sucker to work)
>>     
>
> Yes, you need a udev that's new enough to know how to handle the
> firmware loading interface.  Typically, udev will load firmware from
> /lib/firmware, though I suppose that depends on the distribution.  Not
> sure if RH/Fedora support fw loading, newer Ubuntu-E and SuSE do...
>
> --D
>   
Fedora Core 6 does. I just had to drop the firmware into /lib/firmware 
to get it loaded correctly. Unfortunately the drivers in the Fedora 
kernels do not have the SATA support merged into them. I looked at the 
aic94xx-sas-2.6.git tree, but it looks like things have been swapped 
around between scsi and libata since 2.6.19.1 (the latest fc6 update 
kernel). If anyone has versions of the SATA support patches that apply 
on top of a Fedora kernel, could you please direct me to them?

Aravind.

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> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>   

Re: Please help if u can.

[Luben Tuikov]

--- "Darrick J. Wong" <djwong@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> Laziness, in my case.  I suppose it would be useful to document the fact
> that I've made changes to libsas/aic94xx.  Though the "what has been
> done" part ... I was hoping the commit messages would suffice.

Doing a rev list on drivers/scsi/aic94xx shows only 25 commits.

But if you diff what was committed (2908d778ab3e244900c310974e1fc1c69066e450)
with my code as posted to lkml and lsml -- huge differences.

That is, what was commited (2908d778ab3e244900c310974e1fc1c69066e450)
is already changed code.  So the commits and justifications
of those changes and differences are nowhere to be found.

Note that the driver as posted by me to lkml and lsml back in Sept
2005 was fully functional.  From functionality point of new, no
changes were necessary.

> > The existing copyright notices should remain but what
> > about the massive changes to that driver in 2006?
> > Where is the indication of whom John should contact?
> >
> > Perhaps something like:
> >  "For maintenance of this driver contact
> >   linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org"
> 
> Alexis can answer this part.
> 
> > FYI John, Luben maintains his own version of the
> > aic94xx and that version holds the sequencer firmware
> > in a binary blob within the driver. Due to kernel policy,
> > that blob was moved to separate file by someone else. The
> > error that you are reporting suggests that the firmware
> > file for the aic94xx cannot be found. On my system
> > the file that you may be missing looks like this:
> > # ls -l /lib/firmware/aic94xx-seq.fw
> > -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 22622 Aug 29 17:36 /lib/firmware/aic94xx-seq.fw
> 
> http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jejb/aic94xx-seq.fw
> 
> --D
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-scsi" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

Re: Please help if u can.

[Luben Tuikov]

--- Douglas Gilbert <dougg@torque.net> wrote:
> This code was effectively removed from Luben's control
> about 18 months ago and has passed through several sets

Or rather, it was "forked off" of my main development tree.
I guess, bottomley felt more comfortable with controlling
it, that way.

> FYI John, Luben maintains his own version of the
> aic94xx and that version holds the sequencer firmware

Yep, I kept on development in the main git tree,
i.e. my own.

I don't know all of them, (since they don't tell me),
but I do know of several products, and maybe a distro
which is using the driver as I maintain it, for stability
reasons.

   Luben

Re: Please help if u can.

[Luben Tuikov]

--- John Scarpa <john@tlchosting.com> wrote:
> Dear Luben,
> 
> I am trying to compile the aic94xx for my aic9410 directly into my 
> kernel (fc5_64bit-2.6.20)...  Is this possible or must it be loaded as a 
> module?  I am really not wanting to add modular support to my nice neat 
> monolithic kernel.. :-(  I've been searching for ever now and tried 
> everything i could to no avail..

Dear John,

The driver which you found in the kernel was forked off of my
main development git tree, by bottomley, changed privately by him
and then committed to the kernel.  It is loosely maintained by
him and linux-scsi.

The driver which I maintain keeps the FW code as u8[] in the
source, implements the SAT standard, i.e. supports SATA devices,
and "just works".  As I mentioned, it is being used by product
vendors who build on top of the aic94xx chip and as far as I know,
by at least one distro, for stability reasons.

Depending on which version of the driver you use, you should
forward questions to the appropriate party maintaining it.

> Thank you for any help!  btw this is the first time i ever wrote a 
> maintainer for help... my pride is definitely hurting right now...

No worries, you just didn't know.

Best wishes,
    Luben


> 
> Best wishes,
> John Scarpa
> 
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