Re: suggestion on initial IDE-boot configuration
Interesting... I don't think it's unique to Sparc machines. I've encountered the same problem with a "RevA" Blue&White Macintosh G3. It looks as though the problem is that the card is capable of faster performance than the PCI bus can sustain. The card advertises it's highest performance level, and the kernel attempts to use it, but the poor old PCI-bus has trouble keeping up. I don't know enough about the hardware protocols involved to tell, but I would think that there ought to be some way of finding out what the PCI bus is (or claims to be) capable of, and taking that into account when deciding which DMA mode to use. Failing that, there ought to be some kind of automatic fall-back to a slower mode if you get more than a few "missed interrupt" indications. Rick On Tuesday, September 21, 2004, at 09:05 PM, Steve Pacenka wrote: On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 07:23, Jurzitza, Dieter wrote: Dear listmembers, my experiences with my U60 lead me to the following suggestion: -> put a default "ide=nodma" as kernel parameter on SPARC -> make the user / the configuration enable dma via /etc/init.d/XXX why? U60 cannot cope with udma-modes (AFAIK, on those Promise controllers I have tested) > 2. If you i.e. use an external controller that enables max-dma-speed by default, the installation will always fail - assuming you want to install on an ide-hdd. If this would be an installation option (maybe with a test-structure ...) IMHO ide-installation could run smoothly. Somebody who does not know about the potential problems will never be lucky with this. Any hdd-setup will fail due to the too high speed drive-access due to the dma-mode. Take care Two questions: 1. Would this have side effects on built-in IDE controllers in Ultra 5 and 10? I didn't need to do anything special when installing or running Sarge on these. My U10 at work runs very reliably at a default mdma2, with a Seagate 80G drive capable of ATA100 (udma4?). 2. Doesn't the disabling of DMA make throughput really lousy? How about a USB2 or firewire card and an external drivebox, if one must use IDE drives?
Re: suggestion on initial IDE-boot configuration
On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 07:23, Jurzitza, Dieter wrote: > Dear listmembers, > my experiences with my U60 lead me to the following suggestion: > > -> put a default "ide=nodma" as kernel parameter on SPARC > -> make the user / the configuration enable dma via /etc/init.d/XXX > > why? > U60 cannot cope with udma-modes (AFAIK, on those Promise controllers I have > tested) > 2. If you i.e. use an external controller that enables > max-dma-speed by default, the installation will always fail - assuming you > want to install on an ide-hdd. > If this would be an installation option (maybe with a test-structure ...) > IMHO ide-installation could run smoothly. > Somebody who does not know about the potential problems will never be lucky > with this. Any hdd-setup will fail due to the too high speed drive-access due > to the dma-mode. > Take care Two questions: 1. Would this have side effects on built-in IDE controllers in Ultra 5 and 10? I didn't need to do anything special when installing or running Sarge on these. My U10 at work runs very reliably at a default mdma2, with a Seagate 80G drive capable of ATA100 (udma4?). 2. Doesn't the disabling of DMA make throughput really lousy? How about a USB2 or firewire card and an external drivebox, if one must use IDE drives? > > Dieter Jurzitza > >
suggestion on initial IDE-boot configuration
Dear listmembers, my experiences with my U60 lead me to the following suggestion: -> put a default "ide=nodma" as kernel parameter on SPARC -> make the user / the configuration enable dma via /etc/init.d/XXX why? U60 cannot cope with udma-modes (AFAIK, on those Promise controllers I have tested) > 2. If you i.e. use an external controller that enables max-dma-speed by default, the installation will always fail - assuming you want to install on an ide-hdd. If this would be an installation option (maybe with a test-structure ...) IMHO ide-installation could run smoothly. Somebody who does not know about the potential problems will never be lucky with this. Any hdd-setup will fail due to the too high speed drive-access due to the dma-mode. Take care Dieter Jurzitza -- HARMAN BECKER AUTOMOTIVE SYSTEMS Dr.-Ing. Dieter Jurzitza Manager Hardware Systems ESI Industriegebiet Ittersbach Becker-Göring Str. 16 D-76307 Karlsbad / Germany Phone: +49 (0)7248 71-1577 Fax: +49 (0)7248 71-1216 eMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Internet: http://www.becker.de *** Diese E-Mail enthaelt vertrauliche und/oder rechtlich geschuetzte Informationen. Wenn Sie nicht der richtige Adressat sind oder diese E-Mail irrtuemlich erhalten haben, informieren Sie bitte sofort den Absender und loeschen Sie diese Mail. Das unerlaubte Kopieren sowie die unbefugte Weitergabe dieser Mail ist nicht gestattet. This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in error) please notify the sender immediately and delete this e-mail. Any unauthorized copying, disclosure or distribution of the contents in this e-mail is strictly forbidden. ***
