[rescue] Some days ....

[Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.]

>Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 02:50:49 -0400
>From: Phil Stracchino <alaric at caerllewys.net>
>Subject: Re: [rescue] Some days ....
>
>On Sun, Jun 08, 2003 at 02:47:48AM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
>> On Sunday, June 8, 2003, at 02:38 AM, Michael Free wrote:
>> >You've got it all wrong, man... you need to put the driver in config.sys,
>> >and then go make sure you've added it to win.ini and system.ini in the
>> >windows directory. Oh, and don't forget to turn on the 15-16M memory hole
>> >setting in BIOS, and those cards can be pretty tricky about Video BIOS
>> >shadowing. And make sure you have a good free IRQ and DMA setting, and 
>> >that nothing;s stepping on your memory location. Oh, and don't forget to 
>> >set the card jumpers for the right DRAM timing and size.
>> >
>> >********
>> >
>> >Dear GOD pc's are a PAIN IN THE A$$. I'd almost forgotten about all 
>> >that
>> >wrangling.....
>> 
>>   Better watch out, man...them's FIGHTIN' WORDS around here, or so I'm 
>> learning.
>
>To be fair, it hasn't been that bad in a looooooooong time ....  and
>even then, at least half of it was the dain-brammaged OS's fault.

ummm... IMHO PC hardware is seriously lacking in IRQs and DMA channels....

Now that PCI is there, things are somewhat better... plus some things can
share IRQs (not that I think this is the best of ideas), but putting 
a lot of hardware in a PC is still not an easy task.  I tried adding a
second SCSI card to my PC ones (it had a primary SCSI card, sound card,
AGP video card, firewire card, ethernet card (all previous cards PCI),
and an ISA card to control the PCMCIA front mounted slots.... I gave up.
Couldn't manage to get a free IRQ... since I didn't really need to do
it (my intent was a scsi port for external devices) I stopped as it
wasn't worth my time.

I've also had an issue with motherboard with lots of built in goodies
consuming so many IRQ resources that adding hardware was easiest by
disabling onboard devices that I didn't need (second com port).

>From my understanding, PCI uses it's own interrupts, but to be "compatable"
there is a software conrolled hardware mapping of the traditional PCI
IRQs to the PCI interrupt system..... so we are still limited by the
confines of the original PC IRQ system for any device requiring an IRQ
(most).

On top of that, add limitations of brain dead OSes (drivers that will
only work with devices at specific IRQs even if they support IRQs
that the driver won't), etc....

It is better now than it used to be... and I still have and use PCs
(but I spend far more time in front of my Ultra-60), but the architecture
of a PC still makes me cringe....

-- Curt

-- Curt

>
>
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> : phil stracchino : unix ronin : renaissance man : mystic zen biker geek :
> :  alaric at caerllewys.net : alaric-ruthven at earthlink.net : phil at latt.net  :
> :   2000 CBR929RR, 1991 VFR750F3 (foully murdered), 1986 VF500F (sold)   :
> :    Linux Now!   ...Because friends don't let friends use Microsoft.    :
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Curtis Wilbar
Hawk Mountain Networks
rescue at hawkmountain.net

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