Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751196AbXB1Cnf (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:43:35 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751205AbXB1Cnf (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:43:35 -0500 Received: from mail.tmr.com ([64.65.253.246]:53359 "EHLO gaimboi.tmr.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751196AbXB1Cne (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:43:34 -0500 Message-ID: <45E4EC08.50409@tmr.com> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:42:16 -0500 From: Bill Davidsen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.8) Gecko/20061105 SeaMonkey/1.0.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Linus Torvalds CC: Rene Herman , Oleg Nesterov , Stephane Eranian , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: bug in kernel 2.6.21-rc1-git1: conventional floppy drive cannot be mounted without hanging up the whole system References: <20070226180635.GA644@tv-sign.ru> <45E3493C.1040706@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1980 Lines: 43 Linus Torvalds wrote: > > On Mon, 26 Feb 2007, Rene Herman wrote: >> Other than these two, ECP parallel ports are the other remaining users. >> Now, even though on a machine that still has a parallel port it might usually >> indeed be set to ECP in its BIOS; having anything attached to the port also >> use it as such seems quite seldom. > > Well, if it's some kind of cache coherency problem (the same way much more > modern CPU's have cache coherency issues with DMA during C3 sleep), then > it's entirely possible that the normal ECP parallel port behaviour would > never show it, since most people tend to use it for output only (yeah, I > realize you can use it bidirectionally, but at least on old hardware it > tends to be "talk AT printer" rather than "talk WITH printer". The bidirectional use is/was PL/IP, aka "laplink" connections. Yes, I still have a machine I installed that way, and it will run 2.2.19 forever before I try it again. ;-) > > I frankly forget what hardware platforms had problems with the DMA thing, > and what the exact behaviour even was (I think there was some possibility > of corrupt data on the floppy). We also used to have the "nohlt" flag to > turn off hlt entirely, and that was due to some other legacy issues, iirc. > > I seriously doubt we will ever see anybody who has this problem ever > again, but on the other hand, I also seriously doubt that most modern > machines even *have* a floppy drive any more, so I'd rather not even > change it. It's just not worth even a miniscule risk.. Thank you. > > Linus -- Bill Davidsen "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/