I have recently volunteered to take over maintenance of the HOWTO for Kai.
There is a new maintainer of ftape, Claus Heine <claus@momo.math.rwth-aachen.de>
If you have a problem, try posting on comp.os.linux.help, or
to the tape discussion group linux.dev.tape. This is a
Usenet group that mirrors the traffic on the mailing list
linux-tape@vger.rutger.edu (see
Following the ftape development below). It is recommended
that the newsgroup be used in preference to the mailing list, since the
vger machine is overburdened with the load of the Linux
mailing lists.
This HOWTO doesn't currently cover zftape. The next version
will start rectify that.
I use ftape (it is my sole means of backing up on my linux
box :-). I hesitate to make recommendations on what hardware to buy.
I use an Iomega Ditto Tape Insider 3200 and it seems to work ok for
me, but I won't even try to tell you not to buy something else. See
the section
Supported drives and
Un-supported drives for a list of supported
and unsupported drives.
You should try to post a summary of your problems and its solution(s),
after you've got it working, even if you only got it partially
working. Please also send me (<kjj@primenet.com>) a copy
of your solution so that I can add it to the HOWTO.
I generally read my mail every day or so, I try to respond to
everyone, but I cannot guarantee that I will respond immediately. I
usually read the newsgroups (linux.dev.tape and the
kernel list).
If you receive this as part of a printed distribution or on a CD-ROM, please check out the Linux Documentation home page or ftp to ftp://sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/doc/HOWTO to see if there exists a more recent version. This could potentially save you a lot of trouble.
If you email me, please to put the string ftape in the
subject line. This will help ensure the mail doesn't inadvertently
get buried.
ftapeftape is a driver program that controls various low-cost tape
drives that connect to the floppy controller.
ftape is not a backup program as such; it is a device driver,
which allows you to use the tape drive (just like the SoundBlaster 16
driver let you use your sound card) through the device files
/dev/[n]rft[0-3].
ftape is written by Bas Laarhoven
<bas@vimec.nl>, with ``a little help from his friends''
to sort out the ECC (Error Correcting Code) stuff. ftape is
copyrighted by Bas under the GNU General Public License, which
basically says: ``go ahead and share this with the world, just don't
disallow other people from copying it further''.
ftape is quite stable, and has been that for some time now. Most changes are to support the new QIC-3010 and QIC-3020 (aka Travan) tape formats and new tape drives. It is reliable enough for critical backups (but always remember to check your backups, so you won't get a nasty surprise some day).
ftape supports drives that conform to the QIC-117 and one of
the QIC-80, QIC-40, QIC-3010, and QIC-3020 standards.
ftape supports neither QIC-02, IDE (ATAPI), nor SCSI tape
drives. SCSI drives are accessed as /dev/[n]st[0-7] and are
supported by the kernel through the SCSI drivers. If you look for
help on SCSI tape drives, you should read the SCSI-howto.
ATAPI tape drives are supported by the kernel since 1.3.46. See
section
Supported drives and
Un-supported drives for a list of supported
and unsupported drives.