DMA

[Scott James Remnant]

On Wed, 2006-05-24 at 15:35 +1000, Alexander Jacob Tsykin wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 May 2006 08:26, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> > DMA really is a more/less magic setting. Why burden the user with that
> > choice?
> 
> Because only rarely it seems, and certainly not in my case, the system makes 
> the correct choice
> 
Be sure not to confuse the correct choice with the choice you wanted.


If DMA is not enabled by default on your machine (how did you find out
whether it was or wasn't, btw?) then there's a reason for that -- it
means either the hardware or drivers are not capable of providing
reliable functionality with it enabled.

While as a power user you can fiddle with that, it's not something I'd
like ordinary users to fiddle with.  "Don't worry Gran, this may crash
your computer or even result in your data going missing, but it'll make
that DVD of Matrix: Revolutions I bought you play SO MUCH FASTER."


OTOH, DMA is enabled by default on every machine I have here, so I would
be interested to know what chipsets you have[0].

Scott

[0] note: anybody coming along to say DMA is not enabled for their SATA 
    drive will have custard poured over them
-- 
Scott James Remnant
scott at ubuntu.com
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