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6.1: Which modules are needed?

This section describes how the modules depend on each other, and which modules are needed for which hardware.

ftape.o

The general floppy tape driver library. ftape.o is the `kernel' of the ftape device driver module stack. However, it neither knows how to actually talk to the FDC nor how to get the data from the user or copy the data from the tape to the user.

ftape.o doesn't depend on any other of the ftape modules, but it doesn't suffice to load it alone; one needs zftape.o as well as one of the FDC driver modules ftape-internal.o, trakker.o or bpck-fdc.o.


zftape.o

The VFS(1) interface which actually provides the ftape devices. This module is required in order to access the tape from user space.

zftape.o depends on the ftape.o module, but doesn't depend on the FDC modules.


zft-compressor.o

The decompresser for obsolete compressed volumes produced by ftape-3.04d and earlier versions. zft-compressor.o depends on zftape.o and ftape.o, but doesn't depend on the FDC modules. You need this modules only when you want to extract compressed volumes produced by ftape-3.04d and earlier versions of the driver.

You don't need to load this module explicitly if you are using the kernel's module auto-loading facilities. zftape will load it as needed.


ftape-internal.o

The FDC driver module that talks to internal FDCs. This is required when you have an internal tape drive.

ftape-internal.o depends on ftape.o but doesn't depend on zftape.o nor on the obsolete zft-compressor.o.


trakker.o

The FDC driver module that talks to the Colorado Trakker parallel port tape drive. required when you have such a beast.

trakker.o depends on ftape.o but doesn't depend on zftape.o nor on the obsolete zft-compressor.o.


bpck-fdc.o

The FDC driver module that talks to parallel port floppy tape drives with the Micro Solutions `BackPack' interface. You need this when you have e.g. any of the Iomega Ditto parallel port tape drives, in which case this module is required.

bpck-fdc.o depends on ftape.o but doesn't depend on zftape.o nor on the obsolete zft-compressor.o

Generally speaking, you always need to load ftape.o, zftape.o and one or more of the FDC driver modules ftape-internal.o, trakker.o or bpck-fdc.o.

zft-compressor.o is needed when you want to be able to read compressed volumes produced by ftape-3.04d and earlier versions of the driver. If you are a first-time user of ftape then you don't need it.


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