25.0 PCMCIA
PCMCIA is often used to refer the hardware
itself, although the term originates from the organization that
standardized all possible types of PC cards, the PC Memory
Card International Association. In the beginning, PCMCIA
only included PC cards (using a 16-bit bus like ISA cards), but later
on CardBus cards (using a 32-bit bus) were included.
A wide range of PCMCIA hardware is supported in Linux. Linux additionally
includes tools for managing PCMCIA.
PCMCIA cards are mainly used in mobile computing for different
purposes. Examples include:
-
Ethernet and wireless LAN adapters
-
Bluetooth cards
-
Memory cards (Flash, SRAM, and others)
-
Memory card adapters (SD, MMC, SmartMedia, CompactFlash,
MemoryStick)
-
Modems
Most of the card management is silently handled by udev and
hotplug. When user interaction is required, you use the
pccardctl command. For PCMCIA background information,
refer to Section 25.2,
PCMCIA in Detail. For details on
pccardctl, refer to Section 25.1,
Controlling PCMCIA Cards Using pccardctl.
