Linux-kernel mailing list archive 1999-41,: Re: 2.3.20 will not boot (PCI problem)

# Re: 2.3.20 will not boot (PCI problem)

Alex Nicolaou (anicolao@mud.cgl.uwaterloo.ca)
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 01:25:53 -0400

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Linus Torvalds wrote:

> Martin, let's just change the defaults: NOT call the BIOS by default (and
> maybe have a kernel command line to say "pciirq=bios" for the two people
> who need it and have a working BIOS) because I'll bet this is not going to
> be the only report on machines not booting when more people start testing.
> And it's not as we got the interrupt numbes wrong by just looking them up
> by hand.
>
> Getting a irq wrong occasionally is better than crashing mysteriously at
> boot. A device may not work, but at least it is a lot more debuggable. And
> it's probably (almost certainly) more likely that there are more broken
> 32-bit BIOS interfaces than there are broken machines where we have
> trouble guessing the irq number without the BIOS.

Why not do it both ways? If the BIOS and the kernel disagree, log a
message about the problem to the console, and use the kernel's result.
Since this is a boot-time issue only, the overhead is irrelevant, and
having a message about it will make it easier to debug for those for
whom the kernel's method is incorrect.

alex

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