>> FreeBSD does not have the Linux weakness of needing to disable
>> interrupts during IDE disk I/O to avoid filesystem corruption.
>
>This is likely just because FreeBSD has *far* fewer users than Linux,
>and probably even fewer "vintage" machines. The problem machines
>number very few, and nowadays we'd be fairly safe just plain enabling
>interrupts during IDE I/O on all PCI-based boards.
As I posted earlier, you could safely enable interrupts during IDE I/O
for ISA/VLB users too if LILO/LOADLIN had a parameter to override the
new default of ENABLED, accommodating anyone who needs the present
default of disabled.
>Two years ago, the problem was much more widespread, but just about
>all problem systems were ISA or VLB, not PCI.
I still use ISA/VLB boards and I've been wanting to poke around in
some of the chipset registers, but I've found no source for databooks
on Winbond, UMC, etc.
Where do you folks get the databooks?
John