Very Computer

by **Sohail M. Pare** » Sun, 12 Dec 1993 02:18:30

Does LINUX support Magneto-Optical (MO) drives ? I am looking at the
Fugitsu 3.5 inch drive that supports 128M on each drive. I have
read a little bit on the technology and the drive and it looks good. As
you all know MO optical drives are READ/WRITE drives where the READ/WRITE
access is much slower then a normal magnetic drive but you can you use the
media like normal floppy drives. Although its expensive then DAT Tapes but
the media life is much longer. Any way, the drives provide a standard SCSI
(or SCSI-II) interface.

I have the following questions:

a) Since the drives have standard SCSI interface and will be connected
to my standard scsi card, do I even need any additional driver support ?

b) How will the MO-floppy change detection will take place ? Is it gonna be
similar to the way floppy driver detects floppy drive change ?

c) Last but not least, has anyone dared to use these drives on Linux yet ?

Sincerely,

Sohail

--
Sohail M. Parekh Grumman Data Systems

(713) 483-5912 Houston, TX 77034

by **Lewis Muhlenka** » Fri, 24 Dec 1993 00:02:16

Quote:> Does LINUX support Magneto-Optical (MO) drives ? I am looking at the
> Fugitsu 3.5 inch drive that supports 128M on each drive. I have
> read a little bit on the technology and the drive and it looks good. As
> you all know MO optical drives are READ/WRITE drives where the READ/WRITE
> access is much slower then a normal magnetic drive but you can you use the
> media like normal floppy drives. Although its expensive then DAT Tapes but
> the media life is much longer. Any way, the drives provide a standard SCSI
> (or SCSI-II) interface.

> I have the following questions:

> a) Since the drives have standard SCSI interface and will be connected
> to my standard scsi card, do I even need any additional driver support ?

> b) How will the MO-floppy change detection will take place ? Is it gonna be
> similar to the way floppy driver detects floppy drive change ?

> c) Last but not least, has anyone dared to use these drives on Linux yet ?

I have not tried the Fujitsu 3.5" MO drives, but I have successfully
installed Linux on a Tahiti MaxOptix1 1Gig MO drive. I boot it up and
everything. The only problem I had was getting the extended filesystem
stuff to work. This means all of my partitions were 64Meg or less, but
it worked.

I used SLS 1.0a (or something like that. I believe it was based on
Linux 0.99pl9). The Tahiti 1 is on a Future Domain SCSI controller
inside a 486DX/33.

I haven't really messed with Linux in over 6 months. I'm hoping to
install the most recent version some time in January. I'll be doing
the same thing again. I can let anyone know of my progress if anyone
is interested.