> Hi Alan,
>
> Alan Cox wrote:
> >
> ...
> > I've been through most Linux drivers a lot of times. On most CPU's (ie non PC)
> > Linux "locked" operations are not bus atomic anyway and things are fine for
> > the kernel. On devices very few busses propogate "lock" or equivalent
> > "read-modify-write" cycles to I/O devices, let alone use them.
>
> Exactly. I am testing the NO-LOCK option right now and I don't expect to
> run into any problems from the linux kernel or its drivers. :-)
>
> On the other hand there could be a problem with PCI memory mapped I/O
> devices, like some video chips (the Matrox chips use memory-mapped I/O,
> as well as the ET6000). :-(
Do you know if the S3 Trio 64 PCI-based video card might have this
problem? My 2.1.62 system with the 6x86 and no-lock setting froze after
about 20 minutes in X, as soon as I tried to start Communicator 4.03
(which worked fine previously). After rebooting, I've been leary to go
into X or start Communicator, and the system has been running fine now for
about 2 hours, with the same no-lock setting (and I ran an exhaustive
benchmark on it during that time, as well).
I'm wondering if this might be an unrelated kernel bug. Anyone else able
to speculate what might have caused the freeze?
PCI devices found:
Bus 0, device 20, function 0:
Ethernet controller: 3Com 3C905 100bTX (rev 0).
Medium devsel. IRQ b. Master Capable. Latency=248. Min Gnt=3.Max Lat=8.
I/O at 0x6100 [0x6101].
Bus 0, device 18, function 0:
SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AIC-7881U (rev 0).
Medium devsel. Fast back-to-back capable. IRQ a. Master Capable. Latency=32. Min Gnt=8.Max Lat=8.
I/O at 0x6000 [0x6001].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe0800000 [0xe0800000].
Bus 0, device 17, function 0:
VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. Trio32/Trio64 (rev 0).
Medium devsel. IRQ 9.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe0000000 [0xe0000000].
Bus 0, device 7, function 0:
ISA bridge: Intel 82371 Triton PIIX (rev 2).
Medium devsel. Fast back-to-back capable. Master Capable. No bursts.
Bus 0, device 0, function 0:
Host bridge: Intel 82437 (rev 2).
Medium devsel. Master Capable. Latency=32.
thanks,
-bp
-- B. James Phillippe <bryan@Terran.ORG> UNIX, Linux, networks, C, Perl, Java, etc. NIC:BJP4 # http://w3.terran.org/~bryan