Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 01:38:05 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: tony@dell.com (Tony Overfield) Cc: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu, chuckr@glue.umd.edu, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PCI devices Message-ID: <199808260138.SAA29820@usr04.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980825111549.00718928@bugs.us.dell.com> from "Tony Overfield" at Aug 25, 98 11:15:49 am
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> Microsoft claims their OS can be smarter about configuration than the > BIOS can. They can. Specifically, they can allow the sharing of IRQ's on standard ISA serial ports by interlocking the port opening and the enabling of the interrupts on the UART that was opened, for one thing. FreeBSD could do this too, of course, but doesn't. > So it is accurate advice to tell somebody, if their PCI > devices aren't working and their OS isn't a Microsoft Plug and Play OS, > that they should disable the "Plug & Play Operating System" option in > their BIOS setup program. A PnP OS follows the PnP specification, available from the Intel and Microsoft sites, for free download (use "site search" and look for "PnP specification"). A PnP OS is superior, since it will work on machines without a PnP BIOS. By default, PnP devices are required to be "disabled until enabled"; the bsearch mechanism can be implemented once in the OS; after that, it is no longer necessary to rely on the BIOS vendor "doing the right thing". This will specifically save you on ALR systems, where the Bus Mouse on IRQ 12 is not recognized by the BIOS, and thus not recognized by the early version of Windows 95's PnP code, and therefore was gracelessly stomped when you installed an Adaptec SCSI controller (2940), resulting in neither working correctly. Later versions of Windows 95 /98 with PnP support fixed this problem, where the BIOS failed to do so. Other examples are rampant. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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