From: lenneis@wu-wien.ac.at (Joerg Lenneis) Subject: Re: [SUMMARY] SLS Experiences Date: 4 Apr 1993 00:49:28 GMT
Donald J. Becker (becker@super.org) wrote:
: In article <1p3nekINNsqn@uwm.edu> pegasus@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (David R Hucke) writes:
: >As promised, here is the summary of results...
: >From @rnd.brooks.af.mil:smd@hrt216.brooks.af.mil Thu Mar 18 15:21:00 1993
: >
: > Well, I've had some problems with the recent SLS. For one
: >thing, they've unnecessarily compiled in the ethernet drivers into the
: >a1 kernel, without making any use of them.
:
: While it's not yet possible, the plan is to be able to load linux over
: the net with minimal user input. This requires that the boot kernel
: have built-in autoprobing, auto-IRQing ethercard drivers.
:
: >On the machines we use here,
: >that causes a1 to lock up, because we have WD8003EB boards that the
: >driver doesn't correctly identify as being 8-bit, and it tries using it
: >as 16-bit.
:
: This problem has been resolved (I think). It would have taken weeks
: longer to discover and fix if Peter hadn't provided a broader (not
: just larger) user base. The self-selected sample that tests early
: versions of drivers usually use products biased towards higher
: performance, and none of them tested the drivers with an older 8003.
:
Donald,
I think I might have found another problem with the autodetection code. I
just installed the newest SLS (pl96) on one of our PCs
with an Ethercard PLUS (WD8003E). It is jumpered to IRQ 5 and i/o address 0x280.
The kernel recognizes it as a WD8003 and gets the correct hardware address on
startup, but thinks it has IRQ 3. I just wanted to try out wether this PC would
boot at all with Linux, so I only installed the a series and no networking
software.
If you think this is a problem with the autodetection I'll be glad to mail
you the exact hardware specs and whatever else you might need.
Oh, the idea of doing a remote install of Linux is great, that was one of the
features I thought would be very useful in larger installations.