Datasheet

“main” (Installation and Administration) — 2004/6/25 — 13:29 — page 330 — #356
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16.1 PCMCIA
PCMCIA stands for Personal Computer Memory Card International Associa-
tion. It is used as a collective term for all hardware and software involved.
16.1.1 The Hardware
The essential component is the PCMCIA card. There are two distinct types:
PC Cards These are currently the most used cards. They use a 16-bit bus
for data transmission. These cards are inexpensive and generally very
well supported by Linux.
CardBus Cards These cards represent a more recent standard. CardBus
cards use a 32-bit bus, which makes them faster, but also more expen-
sive. Since the data transfer rate is frequently restricted at some other
point, it is often not worth the extra cost. There are numerous drivers
for these cards, but some of them are unstable. Whether these cards
are well supported also depends on the available PCMCIA controller.
Determine what card is currently inserted with cardctl ident when the
PCMCIA service is active. A list of supported cards can be found in /usr/
share/doc/packages/pcmcia/SUPPORTED.CARDS. The most recent
version of the PCMCIA HOWTO is available in the same directory.
The second essential component is the PCMCIA controller of the PC card
or CardBus bridge. These establish the connection between the card and
the PCI bus and, in older devices, the connection to the ISA bus as well.
These controllers are almost always compatible with the Intel chip i82365.
All common models are supported. Retrieve the controller type with
pcic_probe. If it is a PCI device, lspci -vt provides additional infor-
mation.
16.1.2 The Software
Differences between PCMCIA Systems
There are currently two PCMCIA systems — external PCMCIA and kernel
PCMCIA. The external PCMCIA system by David Hinds is the older one. It
is quite well tested and is subject to ongoing development. The sources of
the modules used are not integrated in the kernel sources, which is why it
is called external.
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16.1. PCMCIA