·        Supports 2.4 kernels

·        Supports ZR36057 based boards

·        Unified driver source for various 2.2.x and 2.4.x kernels

·        Improved SMP support

·        Big physical area API is not required to compile and use the drive

·        Using Video for Linux API (for video-in-a-window) will not work reliably without applying big physical area patch. This issue will be addressed in the stable release.

·        Driver provided in source form only. Binary packages will be provided for stable release.

·        The older stock i2c interface will limit the number of supported boards to 4. This can be changed by raising the hardcoded limit and recompiling the videodev and i2c modules. This issue will be addressed in the stable release.

The driver is provided in source form only and must be compiled from source.

If you consider using Video for Linux API, we recommend that you apply the big physical area patch to your kernel source and recompile. Patches are available in the patches directory of the driver. Updated patches can be downloaded from http://www.polyware.nl/~middelin/En/hob-v4l.html and Optibase Site .

If you plan to use more than 4 cards, you need to patch kernel i2c headers and recompile videodev and i2c modules. Patches for 2.2.x and 2.4.x kernels are available in the patches directory of the driver as i2c-22.patch and i2c-24.patch.

Open the driver source in some directory and compile the driver using one of the two provided makefiles (Makefile or Makefile.sa).

This is a preferable way to compile the driver. Simply run `make? in the driver directory. To install the module and devices, run `make install?.

This method uses standard kernel driver compilation scheme to automatically parse all the required configuration parameters from the kernel source. However, in order for this scheme to work, the kernel source must have the configuration information of the compiled kernel. Most distributions ship kernel sources that do not contain configuration information. If your kernel source tree does not contain the configuration information, take the following three steps to load it:

·   Locate the configuration file. For RedHat packaged kernels, you need to look in the /usr/src/linux/configs directory. For example, if you have 2.2.16 kernel that has been configured for SMP and i686 support, choose kernel-2.2.16-i686-smp.config file.

·   Run `make menuconfig? in /usr/src/linux directory. Load the located configuration file and exit, saving the configuration.

·   Run ?make dep clean? in /usr/src/linux directory.

This allows compiling the driver without loading the configuration to the kernel source. This method is not guaranteed to always work. You need to edit the Makefile.sa file, setting the following variables to their correct values:

·   KERNEL ? location of your kernel source tree. Default choice of /usr/src/linux is fine for most users.

·   LD ? linker definition. Do not change for PC architecture.

·   CPU ? Define CPU for which your kernel was compiled. Valid choices are 386, 486, 586, or 686.

·   modversions ? defines whether module versioning is enabled in your compiled kernel. Default choice is ?y? and fine for most distributions.

·   smp ? define to ?y? if you kernel was compiled for SMP (multi-processor support). Otherwise, define to ?n?.

·   NEW_I2C ? set to ?y? to tell the build process that your kernel source uses the new i2c code despite it is a 2.2 kernel. Default setting ?n? is fine for most users. If you have 2.2.19 kernel from RedHat, set to ?y?.

·   EXTRATAG ? allows to append an extra tag for module install path, if your /usr/src/linux/Makefile does not set EXTRAVERSION properly. Most users do not set this. For kernels with SMP support from RedHat, define this to ?smp?. This variable is relevant only if you will run `make ?f Makefile.sa install?.

To compile the driver, run `make ?f Makefile.sa? in the driver directory. To install the module and devices, run `make ?f Makefile.sa install?.