> George writes:
> > On Sat, Jan 02, 1999 at 03:56:33AM -0500, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
>
>
> >> 5. This is not PnP. It is software jumpers. PnP exists because it
> >> is moronic to make the user tell the computer about the computer.
> >> Computers ought to be able to determine their own innards.
> >
> > Use PCI then.
>
> Linux makes you buy new hardware? That ought to sell...
>
> Yes, Microsoft helped design this. Get over it. Every new PC
> and ISA card supports this. Dynamic reconfiguration isn't as
> nice as slot-based configuration, but is still quite usable.
>
And it doesn't work any better under MS OS's many times.
Sure, the current state of sound card support is less than stellar,
but my soundcard isn't supported under NT either. I'm not planning
on whining about it, if I ever care enough I'll help hack support in.
It would be nice for novice users if the userspace scripts to
automate PNP config were installed with the distributions.
> >> 6. This won't let us reallocate devices. If I have n IRQs available
> >> for the ISA bus and cards that need n+2 IRQs, I ought to be able
> >> to use all but 2 devices at the same time without deciding that
> >> 2 particular devices just won't ever function. The kernel needs
> >> to move IRQs as needed so that I can freely use my hardware.
> >> Userspace can't handle this at all.
> >
> > How can I best say this..
> >
> > Shoot, I'm not even going to /TRY/ to communicate this to someone who
> > understands the internals so little as to suggest such a down right
> > /INSANE/ and /EXTREMELY DANGEROUS/ thing go into the kernel..
>
> It is perfectly reasonable. Would you rather share ISA IRQs?
> That _would_ be extremely dangerous. How else to do this?
>
Set up the startup scripts to avoid conflicts between cards.
Devices on the same card should be able to share IRQ's safely.
> Kernel internals would change when such a patch is applied,
> so that is no issue.
>
> Cheap modern hardware sucks. If you don't like it, _you_ use PCI.
>
I do by preference, I recommend it to my family and friends as well.
So should you. ISA sucks so badly not even Microsoft wants to
keep it around anymore (see PC'99 spec).
Dan Taylor
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