From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Aug 23 15:50:05 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA03141 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Sun, 23 Aug 1998 15:50:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from dingo.cdrom.com (ppp-d4.dialup.hilink.com.au [203.2.144.14]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA03049 for ; Sun, 23 Aug 1998 15:50:00 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mike@dingo.cdrom.com) Received: from dingo.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dingo.cdrom.com (8.9.1/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA24438 for ; Sun, 23 Aug 1998 15:18:14 GMT (envelope-from mike@dingo.cdrom.com) Message-Id: <199808231518.PAA24438@dingo.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PCI devices In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 23 Aug 1998 13:47:51 -0400." <199808231747.NAA18976@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 15:18:14 +0000 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > P.S.: Don't be fooled by marketing literature (or clueless lusers) who > talk about PCI adapters with "plug & play" support. PCI implies > "plug & play" in that the PCI BIOS works out what iospace and > membase addresses and IRQs to assign to cards in order to avoid > resource conflicts. But this is not the same as Plug & Play (tm), > which I think only applies to ISA boards. I sometimes see people > on mailing lists or newsgroups complaining that their PCI devices > don't work for some reason, and often someone follows up with > a suggestion to "disable plug & play| support. These people are > confused: PCI devices don't support Plug & Play (tm), so there's > nothing to turn off. For clarity's sake and no more, let me point out that "Plug and Play" is a generic term describing zero-user-intervention configuration. PCI is implicitly "plug and play" - you can't have a non-PnP PCI card, so it's more correct to say that PCI devices only support Plug-n-Play so you can't turn it off. This confusion is common; many people refer to PnP only in the context of ISA PnP, but PnP is a generic term applied to ISA PnP, PCI, PCMCIA, CardBUS, USB, etc. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message