Re: setting ultra DMA for hdd at boot time?
On Fri, Nov 09, 2001 at 02:19:38AM +0100, Steffen Evers wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 17:01, nate wrote:
> > not all systems work good with DMA on. especially some VIA
> > chipsets. i had major problems with DMA on them so i stopped
> > using the onboard ide and started using promise ata100 cards
> > in their place.
> > older motherboards are even worse sometimes ..i think debian
> > strives to be as conservative as it can with the kernel config.
> > just enough to get a system running.
>
> I understand, but without it people will have problems with multimedia
> and a slow system. So, maybe there should be an easy way to get this on
> for anyone.
Unless there is a reliable way for the driver to tell if a device has
proper DMA support, this is a no go. If you configure the kernel to
turn it on, it does that blindly.
Older drives don't support it, some drives just lie about it or just
simply bad quality. Some board has chipset issues. When problem strikes,
you not only get file corruptions, but your hd will also be corrupted in
low level.
With boot script and hdparm, you still have a _chance_ to determine if a
device can support it.
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