[CyG]

I have a similar (and even cheaper product) which works perfectly well but it's not as cool or as compact as being able to use the slot.

[fgodfrey]

I figured from the Linux code that the SD slot that it was a standard interface. So, after some Googling, I found this driver with source code for a different Inspiron's sdhc slot: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=62711

First, I downloaded PCI Utils and ran lspci -nn to get the vendor ID and device ID of the slot.

After changing the PCI vendor ID to 0x197b (JMicron) and Device ID to 0x2381 (SD Host Controller), that translated to a PCI match string of 0x2381197b. I loaded the kernel extension and, LIFE! It was able to read the header of a 1GB card. It didn't end up mounting it and it doesn't show up in /dev. Something is definitely wrong because kextunload fails. However, if it can read the header, presumably a bit of debugging should fix it. Not sure if I'll be able to do this myself, but I'm going to give it a whirl. I've written many device drivers, but they're for Irix and Linux not MacOS....

[UnaClocker]

Very cool! Thanks for the information, keep us posted.

[MiniCR]

awesome news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Type11]

Think I might have something almost working using this. I will have more time tomorrow to mess with it but this is definitely close.

[jeffburg]

Originally Posted by Type11

Think I might have something almost working using this. I will have more time tomorrow to mess with it but this is definitely close.

... the anticipation

[loonix]

Originally Posted by Type11

Think I might have something almost working using this. I will have more time tomorrow to mess with it but this is definitely close.

As always, you the man ;-)

[eddiem5]

Very exciting news.. Thanks again for all this great work..

I think many of us would love to contribute for your time and energy...

Thanks again and yes, you are the man!! :-)

[fgodfrey]

Ok, here is a working READ ONLY sd card driver. I have disabled write mode (it kernel panics) so it *should* work for you. It handles card insertion and removal. It's not the zippiest thing in the world - I need to get it to use DMA and interrupts to fix that. I ported the exceptions for the JMicron host controller from 2.6 linux/drivers/mmc/host/sdhci.c to the driver I got from InsanelyMac. For some reason the JMicron code has been removed from current Linux (2.6.23).

WARNING: The driver will hang if you use an SDHC card so normal cards only right now.

For anyone else debugging this, there are two problems with the existing driver that need to be fixed to get read mode working. 1) The driver doesn't correctly set the Timeout control register before performing a transfer. 2) The host controller (according to the Linux driver) must have a command and data reset before every command. I also had to reset interrupt flags before checking them.

[UnaClocker]

This is freaking SWEET! Now we are making some serious progress. Thank you!