Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD) and openSUSE 11.4

Update: There’s some strange lag when copying files to or from an SD card!

I recently reinstalled my Acer Extensa 5620Z laptop with openSUSE 11.4. Almost everything worked out of the box, which impressed me. The exception was the card reader.

If you check /var/log/messages after inserting a card, you may see a message like this:

tifm_core: MMC/SD card detected in socket 0:1

This confirms that the kernel detected a card. If the reader still doesn’t work, try the following workaround using setpci.

Note: Run the following steps as root.

1. List your PCI devices with lspci and find the card reader’s entry:

   0f:06.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)

   The first column, 0f:06.2 in this example, is the reader’s PCI address. You’ll need it in the next step.

2. Run the following command, replacing 0f:06.2 with your card reader’s PCI address:

   setpci -s 0f:06.2 4c.b=0x02

Your card reader should now work. To apply the setting automatically at startup on openSUSE 11.4, add the command from step 2, with the appropriate PCI address, to /etc/rc.d/after.local.