[vox-tech] hdparm for scsi emulated CDROM drives?

[Rob Rogers]

On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 00:28:21AM -0700, Mark K. Kim wrote:
> So anyway, I gotta be able to burn CDs now, right?  So I decided to put my
> CD and DVD drives in SCSI emulation mode so I can burn and read CDs.
> After getting that working, I ran hdparm on /dev/scd0 and /dev/scd1 to
> enable DMA, but it's refusing to even query these SCSI-emulated IDE
> devices, let alone let me enable DMAs on them.
> 
> So does ide-scsi automatically enable DMA?  Is there a way to enable DMA
> at all?  Do I just live with DMA disabled?

No, ide-scsi doesn't automatically enable it. Your problem is that
hdparm will refuse to work with SCSI devices, but it bases its decision
on the device name. I believe your /dev/scd? devices should also be
accessible through /dev/hd? too. I've never actually tested (don't know
how I'd do that) but hdparm never complained about enabling DMA on my
/dev/hdc and hdd.

[snip]
> PS: If I weren't a programmer I'd have given up using Debian on day 1.
> I'm sooo glad I can program... and have been reading almost all posts
> regarding Debian on vox :)  On the downside, Debian's got a long way to go
> before it's friendly for a regular Joe.  But much better in terms of
> quality of what I ended up with in the end compared with RedHat or
> Mandrake, though.

I know what you mean here. I've been using Linux for years now, and
both times I tried installing Debian I had to give up. Not sure exactly
what it was, but it definitely wasn't as newbie friendly as the other
distros...I'm definitely not saying that's a bad thing though, and I
actually think most debian fans might actually like it better this way. 
I also have to admit, it's been a while since I tried it last. I do plan
on giving it another shot in the next week or so though. I've got a new
box I plan on building this weekend that I'd like to try Debian on. ;)

Rob