"xf86EnableIOPorts: Failed to set IOPL for I/O" again

[Guennadi Liakhovetski <gl@dsa-ac.de>]

Hello all

We are trying to set up a Debian Woody distribution on an ARM (PXA255)
platform, kernel 2.4.21. And we have problems with the XServer.
Deb-versions are
xserver-common (4.1.0-16)
xserver-xfree86 (4.1.0-16)
the XServer writes in the log-file:

This is a pre-release version of XFree86,...

XFree86 Version 4.1.0.1 / X Window System
(protocol Version 11, revision 0, vendor release 6510)
Release Date: 21 December 2001

Just starting the server with

/usr/bin/X11/X :0 vt07 -dpi 100 -xf86config /etc/X11/XF86Config

produces the error in subject. We've found a couple of references on the
internet to this error on various platforms, and their the "magical"
workaround was to create a soft link like

ln -s 03000000,2 /etc/arm_systype

And it didn't look like the file 03000000,2 actually should exist. If we
do this we get a kernel panic with an unhandled fault:

Unhandled fault: external abort on linefetch (0x406) at 0x401e80d0

triggered by the stat system-call... What is actually this 03000000,2?
Some address? I've seen some names like Tsunami on alpha...

I've looked in the function, that seems to be doing the ioperm call in
programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/os-support/linux/lnx_video.c:

#elif !defined(__mc68000__) && !defined(__sparc__) && !defined(__mips__)
        if (ioperm(0, 1024, 1) || iopl(3))
                FatalError("xf86EnableIOPorts: Failed to set IOPL for I/O\n");

The ioperm(0, 1024, 1) on ARM doesn't seem to make much sense either. Ok,
my suspicion was right - it tries to access ISA...

Thanks
Guennadi
---------------------------------
Guennadi Liakhovetski, Ph.D.
DSA Daten- und Systemtechnik GmbH
Pascalstr. 28
D-52076 Aachen
Germany