ftape-3.x came with a manual of its own, which is contained in
the ftape-3.04d package available from the usual places. See
Getting Ftape.
ftape-4.x also has a documentation package ftape-doc which
is available from the usual places. This Ftape-HOWTO, however, also
focusses on ftape-4.x and is meant as an entry point to the
available documentation. See
Getting Ftape.
The ftape-tools package (including useful utilities for
ftape) comes with its own manual. See
Getting Ftape.
The Ftape-FAQ is included wordly in this manual, but more recent
versions may be found at
http://www.correct.nl/~ftape.
The maintainer of the source for ftape is Claus Heine
<heine@math1.rwth-aachen.de>. He has a web page at
http://www-math.math.rwth-aachen.de/~LBFM/claus/ftape/.
If you have a problem or questions about ftape, try posting to the
Linux Tape mailing list linux-tape@vger.rutger.edu (see
Following the ftape development below). There
also used to be a newsgroup that mirrored the mailing list traffic but
it has vanished some time ago.
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. See the
section
Supported drives and
Unsupported 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 a copy of your solution to the Linux Tape mailing list at <linux-tape@vger.rutgers.edu> so that it can be added to the HOWTO and/or the FAQ.
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 include the string ftape in the subject
line. This will help ensure the mail doesn't inadvertently get
buried. But preferrably you should email to the Linux Tape mailing list
at
<linux-tape@vger.rutgers.edu> instead of contacting me
directly.
ftape
ftape 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]qft[0-3].
ftape was originally 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 has undergone several changes since then. While the
Linux-2.0.x kernel series still contains ftape-2.08 the v2.1.x
and soon the v2.2.* kernel series come with ftape-3.x (hopefully
even with ftape-4.02, but this wasn't clear at the time of this
writing) which differs in some points from the ftape-2.x driver.
Since version 3.00 the ftape driver has been maintained by
me (Claus-Justus Heine); it has been changed and improved in several
respects and support for new hardware has been added.
ftape is quite stable, and has been that for some time now. It
is reliable enough for critical backups (but it's always a good idea
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 as well as the Iomega
Ditto 2GB and Ditto Max drives which no longer strictly conform to the
QIC standards in all respects.
ftape can drive floppy tape drives that connect to the internal FDC
as well as certain parallel port floppy tape drives.
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
Unsupported drives for a list of supported
and unsupported drives.