Re: warning patch for 2.1.120 dcache.c

Gregory Maxwell (linker@z.ml.org)
Tue, 8 Sep 1998 20:18:21 -0400 (EDT)


On Tue, 8 Sep 1998, Jeffrey Hundstad wrote:

> I have hardware that is already blacklisted for Linux. ...This
> blacklisted hardware works fine with my current configuration, so I
> turn on the feature that was disabled AFTER the boot. No harm done.
>
> Consider these two senerios:
>
> 1. Device gets blacklisted while not deserving it.
>
> Consequence: Hardware doesn't perform to its maximum.

Hopefully there would be a boot message alerting the user of this.

> Fix: Test the blacklisted feature, if it works turn the feature on
> after the boot, if not leave feature turned off.
>
> 2. Device is not blacklisted when it should be.
>
> Consequence: a. Hardware fails during boot, can't continue
> b. Hardware fails silently, corruption occurs.
> Fix: a. throw out bad hardware, replace.
> b. after months of wondering what's wrong, throw out bad
> hardware, replace.
c. throw out Linux, reinstall windows 95.
>
> Which senerio seems to be easier to live with. In my opinion 1 seems
> easier to cope with on the downside. Of course the natural argument
> is to blacklist all possible problems then whitelist known good
> combinations... This smells like kernel bloat to me.
>
> -- Jeffrey Hundstad

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