This page contains unofficial patches and updates to the Linux device drivers for the FarSync T2P and T4P cards from FarSite Communications Ltd.
The cards are intelligent, Am186HC based, with 1Mb RAM supporting 2 or 4 synchronous lines at up to 8Mbps using X.21, V.35 or V.24 signalling. See the main FarSite Communications site for more details.
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Warning: These patches and support utilities are experimental and may contain features and bugs not found in the main FarSite code. FarSite customers wanting direct support should use the official tested drivers downloadable from the FarSite Communications web site. |
I'm only supporting the latest Linux kernels (which already have the driver included) with these pages if you want to use a kernel before 2.4.9 then you should download the standard driver package from FarSite.
Kernel patches are no longer necessary for the mainstream driver. The driver was adopted into the kernel as of version 2.4.9. However a minor annoyance is that the configuration help file was not updated with the new driver information until the release of 2.4.15.
This simple patch corrects the omission and can be applied to kernels 2.4.9 through 2.4.14. You do not need to apply this patch if you don't want the help information, or are using the -AC series of patches, or Krzysztof Halasa's generic HDLC layer patches. Both these sets of patches contain the correct help information.
Krzysztof Halasa has produced a new version of his "Generic HDLC layer" and the latest version of his patch for the 2.4.13 kernel supports the FarSync driver. This is the easiest way to install support for the generic HDLC layer mail me if you require an incremental patch for earlier kernel versions.
The new layer adds IP over Frame Relay support to the cards and improves on the Cisco HDLC protocol support allowing several parameters to be modified. X.25 is also planned and some minimal support is already included.
More details of Krzysztofs package are available at http://hq.pm.waw.pl/hdlc/.
Using this generic package changes the network device name from "syncX" to "hdlcX" and you will have to modify the network configuration scripts from the base package accordingly should you choose to use them. Note that the configuration utility "farutil" has an alternate build "farhdlc" which will detect and use the generic HDLC configuration ioctls if they are available.
| 15 Nov 2001 |
Remove general package as better available from Farsite. Reflect Krzysztofs adoption of my generic HDLC patches. Update Config.help patch description. |
| 26 Oct 2001 | Updated scripts and farutil.c in farbeta-0.09.4.tar.gz with support for Generic HDLC. |
| 24 Oct 2001 |
Updated Generic HDLC patches for 2.4.{12,13} kernels. Added config help file patch. |
| 21 Sep 2001 |
Driver now in 2.4.9 kernel. Updated version of Generic HDLC patches. |
| 25 Jul 2001 | Updated kernel patches with improved goto labeling. |
| 15 Jul 2001 | Driver adopted into AC kernel series (2.4.6-ac3). |
| 10 Jul 2001 | Main package (0.09.1) updated with yesterdays changes. |
| 9 Jul 2001 |
Driver improvements suggested by kernel developers list. Use fixed sized types (u8 etc) in shared memory structures. Unwound and removed FST_LOCK and FST_UNLOCK macros. Handle possible ioremap failures. Removed gotos from fst_open(). Made BUF_OFFSET() usage more consistent. |
| 3 Jul 2001 |
Patches for 2.4.5ac23 and 2.4.6pre9 prepared. Generic HDLC driver varient published. |
| 27 Jun 2001 | Version 0.08 passed QA and available for download from FarSite. |
| 29 May 2001 |
Support for 2.4.5 kernel (remade user patch file). Carrier detect handling on user open changes to avoid PPP problem. Warning message added to farutil if interface is up. |
| 11 May 2001 |
Update for Red Hat 7.1 installation. Support for changing MTU. Corrections to printing macros for later compilers. |
| 2 May 2001 |
Update for 2.4.4 kernels. Fix opps when rebooting system with noisy second line. Fix transmit buffer ordering problem. Minor typos in support scripts corrected. |
| 23 Apr 2001 | First public release so nothing here yet. |
