On Tue, Nov 09, 1999 at 08:49:21AM +0100, Fabian.Frederick@prov-liege.be wrote:
> > Hi Gary !
> > > > if it's your only IDE device, it shouldn't be slave to
> > start with. it
> > > > should be a master.
> > >
> > > I thought it only mattered if you had 2 devices on that
> > bus. Is it not
> > > irrelevant with just one device?
> >
> > It may work but it's a bad idea and a good way to run into troubles.
> > (just like Windows ;-})
> AFAIK it's not a kernel issue but BIOS detection relevant only.
> Btw I never saw a BIOS positive detection followed by Linux reject.
Ok, this is maybe caused by the fact that you never had an unsupported
IDE-chipset. ;-}
I think the opposite idea is important:
There are old BIOSes out there that did not detect a slave-only
CD-ROM but Linux does (now, probing has changed).
So this does not affect Linux (anymore), but it may affect other
operating systems you may using. It also may affect the install of
linux, you can't boot directly off CD on those systems, you need a
boot floppy.
I think that Documentation/ide.txt needs to be changed.
Deg Wieers <dag@mind.be> contacted me because I said that ide.txt
suggests to put CD-ROM's as master in single-device configuration.
Both citations are out of ide.txt:
****
Note that when only one IDE device is attached to an interface,
it should be jumpered as "single" or "master", *not* "slave".
Many folks have had "trouble" with cdroms because of this requirement,
so ide.c now probes for both units, though success is more likely
when the drive is jumpered correctly.
****
and later under the topic
"My recommendations to anyone who asks about NEW systems are:"
****
- place the IDE cdrom drive as slave on either interface.
****
This is IMHO not totally consistent.
Using master for any IDE-drives seems to me still more generic
on single drive setups, so I suggest to remove the
second note... (flames expected.)
--ciao - Stefan
"you have moved your mouse, please reboot to make this change take effect"
Stefan Traby phone: +43-3133-6107-2 Mitterlasznitzstr. 13 fax: +43-3133-6107-9 8302 Nestelbach mailto://stefan@sime.com Austria http://homepage.sime.com/stefan
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