status of firewire in recent kernels?

[Bill Fink]

On Wed May 29 2002, R Shapiro wrote:

> In the old days, pre-osx, firewire support in ppc/linux was too flakey
> to use.  Is it more robust now?  Should I be including firewire in
> 2.4.19-pre8-ben0 kernels I build myself?  If so, which specific driver
> should I include?  What kinds of firewire devices are supported --
> cd-rw? iPod (as a mass storage device)?

I'm using a LaCie 80 GB FireWire disk drive quite successfully with the
2.4.19-pre8-ben0 kernel.  I haven't got a CD-RW or iPod but I believe
others have had success with those devices.

Here are my kernel settings:

	CONFIG_IEEE1394=m
	CONFIG_IEEE1394_OHCI1394=m
	CONFIG_IEEE1394_VIDEO1394=m
	CONFIG_IEEE1394_SBP2=m
	CONFIG_IEEE1394_DV1394=m
	CONFIG_IEEE1394_RAWIO=m

The VIDEO1394 and DV1394 are for video devices so you probably don't
need those.  The RAWIO is optional but is handy, especially for the
gscanbus utility which scans the FireWire bus.

I then add the following to the end of my /etc/rc.d/rc.local file:

	modprobe ieee1394
	modprobe ohci1394
	sleep 2
	modprobe raw1394
	modprobe sbp2
	modprobe video1394
	modprobe dv1394

Once again the video1394 and dv1394 is only needed for video devices.

It's probably a good idea to go to http://linux1394.sourceforge.net,
then to the Subversion page link, which gets you to the nightly tarballs
at http://vore.debian.org/linux1394 (note do not use the main Download
link at the left of the web page as this is outdated stuff).  Get the
most recent tarball and replace your linux/drivers/ieee1394 directory
with the contents of the tarball.  The http://linux1394.sourceforge.net
site has lots of useful information on IEEE1394/FireWire.

						-Bill

P.S.  I have noticed one oddity with my LaCie FireWire disk.  If I boot
      into native MacOS and then back into Linux, I have trouble with
      using the FireWire disk, and need to unplug and replug the FireWire
      cable, and then the FireWire disk is happy once more.

P.P.S.  Since the FireWire disk appears as a scsi device, I can even use
        the MacOS HFS+ partitions that are on it with MOL.