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Re: IRQ Conflicts ?



On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Cassandra Lynette Ludwig wrote:

> Not wishing to start a debate, but just setting some facts straight here 
> :-
> 
> On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Erik Mouw wrote:
> 
> > Hmm, that's probably not good, I think your laptop has a CardBus
> > bridge, not the old 82365 PCMCIA bridge. The 2.4 kernels have the
> > yenta_socket module for CardBus bridges, my experience is that
> > linux-2.4 has much better support for the exotic hardware found in
> > laptops.
> 
> Erik, would you perhaps explain therefore to me why almost 60% of the 
> hardware in my laptop ceases to function if I run a 2.4 kernel, but work 
> flawlessly with a 2.2 kernel (2.2.20 basline debian is my currently 
> version).
>
It may be due to the implementation from the yenta_socket module in direct
kernel support. I switched from 2.2.19 + pcmcia package to 2.4.14 and for
my thinkpad everything works.

> The biggest problems I had with 2.4 was PCMCIA - No functionality at all.  
> No matter what pcmcia device I used it 
> failed miserably, and yes, I did try running the yenta socket driver, 
> which is the correct one for this laptop.
> DOCK - Pretty much all the dock devices ceased to function with the 2.4 
> kernel.
> 
> Now, I mainly run my laptop docked, and I use a wireless PCMCIA network 
> card, therefore in regards to the "much better support" that 2.4 
> supposedly has - not in my case.  Oh, and I have a fully updated Toshiba 
> Tecra 8000.
> 
> And one more thing - until the 2.4 kernel is truly stable as far as the 
> Debian testing process is concerned (in other words until it becomes the 
> default kernel), you won't ever find me running it in a production system 
> that is more important than my laptop.  I wanted to use it on that, but it 
> failed miserably, I therefore refuse to trust it on a production server.
> 
There has been some touble when changing things like memory management in
the 2.4 series. But I am using it since 3 month on various production
systems and it runs perfectly stable. But of course, not with experimental
drivers and on commonly known SCSI X86 hardware. 

> However, I do know a few people who happen to be running the 2.4 kernel in 
> a sufficiently useful (to them) level... most of them are being very 
> careful about what hardware they use - namely they are keeping clear of 
> SMP in the 2.4 kernel revs (apparently some code in the 2.4 SMP listing 
> can break things like RAID), and various old hardware support (like well, 
> the Toshiba laptop's PCMCIA controller).
> 
> In final note - the 2.2.20 kernel has a Cardbus driver for the PCMCIA 
> controllers, this works quite well, and if you don't need to upgrade the 
> kernel for some other reason (for instance, you install RH7.1/7.2 *duck*), 
> then you should not do so... unless of course you have spare time to 
> devote to kernel testing... in which case you already know of the 
> potential risks... I hope :-)
> 
> Unfortunately, I seem to have missed the whole 2.3 kernel in this 
> whirlwind rush to upgrade kernels.... I know it exists... but people seem 
> to think that a bleeding edge kernel is more important than a working 
> kernel...
If an operating system does not support needed features, it may not be
successful anymore (the 2.4 soft-RAID code has improved a lot, there are
usable journaling file systems, NFS and Quota are well implemented ....) 

> 
> Regards,
> 	Cassandra
> 
> PS - The other PCMCIA driver is tcic.  My laptop has a multi-mode PCMCIA 
> controller, which will work with either device, depending upon the setting 
> I have the controller in.
> 
> 
> -- 
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> 


   Linux is user friendly, it's just a bit picky about it's friends....
   
   Michael Hothorn
   Institute for Clinical Radiology     
   University of Heidelberg
   Tel: 0049(0)621 383 2276
   http://www.hothorn.de/michael/



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