From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux ppc; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040523 Firefox/0.8 Description of problem: On Apple PowerBook G3's of the "WallStreet" variety, some kind of patch(es) is needed to properly eject PCMCIA and CardBus cards. The WallStreet PCMCIA slots have motorized eject (much like the old Apple 3.5" floppy drives used to). Without the appropriate modifications, the only other approaches are to yank the card out of the slot (which I did until I wrecked an Ethernet cable that way earlier this week) or to use the eccentric tool known as an unbent paper clip (this works in much the same manner as emergency eject of a CD-ROM). I have found conflicting information on the 'Net; the package which needs to be patched is either kernel or pcmcia-cs (or both). I don't yet know if the patch(es) is suitable for inclusion in Fedora Core. Since Yellow Dog 4 isn't out yet, I don't know how it handles this situation. I've never tried Debian or Gentoo on this machine (maybe I should sometime). IIRC (and I may not), PCMCIA eject didn't work under Yellow Dog 3.0 either. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.6.5-1.358 pcmcia-cs-3.2.7-1.5 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. cardctl eject <socket number> Actual Results: Card shuts off but is stuck in the socket Expected Results: Card is ejected Additional info: Even though it's not an official release, IMO FC2 on PPC is the first truly excellent PPC distribution since Yellow Dog Champion Server 1.2. In that context, this bug is clearly minor. If I end up having to do all the major work on this bug, that's OK, but it may be a few weeks before I have the time. In any event, I want to get this filed in Bugzilla now.
This would be a kernel feature -- it needs to get implemented in the upstream kernel first and then it'll just start working in Fedora.
FWIW, from this page: http://www.lycestra.com/sys.html I found this patch: http://www.lycestra.com/dev/2.4/pcmcia.patch It doesn't apply cleanly to recent 2.4 (I tried against 2.4.27-pre4). If I try to apply it to 2.6.6-1.397 it tries to patch a file that doesn't even exist anymore. However, it may still be a good starting point for developing a 2.6 patch, if nobody else has done so yet. If nobody else does any work on this, I'll probably have to postpone working on this for a month or two. (I have no problem with that, however.)
My PowerBook G3 recently became my dad's new office computer, so I now have no way of testing a patch anytime in the near future (and I wouldn't want to try making a patch for this without being able to test it). In the not-so-near future, I may end up getting the machine back the next time he upgrades and I may use it for running Linux again. I'm not completely sure how I should close this bug; DEFERRED is my best guess...
Created attachment 115161 [details] lycestra.com pcmcia.patch (in case the original URL dies) This patch applies against some version of 2.4. In fact, it's against ancient 2.4 and IIRC doesn't even apply to current 2.4 anymore. But this may still be a useful reference for anyone who wants to tackle this in the future. (However, that won't be me. See my next comment on this bug.)
Oops, I already said earlier in this bug that the patch doesn't apply to current 2.4. Anyway, picking up where comment #3 left off... I no longer have functioning "WallStreet" PowerBook G3 hardware, and this is now permanent. Therefore I can't test a fix, so I won't bother trying to fix it. Ergo, I'm changing this bug from DEFERRED to WONTFIX. If anyone else wants to fix this in the future, I guess you should clone this bug (if possible) or file a new bug.