DMA

[Scott]

On 05/23/2006 07:46 AM, * Scott James Remnant spake thusly:
> On Tue, 2006-05-23 at 15:34 +0100, Sean Hammond wrote:
> 
>> I often find that DMA is disabled by default on machines running
>> Ubuntu, and that in order to (for example) play DVDs smoothly I have
>> to enable it following these instructions:
>>
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DMA
>>
> If DMA is disabled by default, then you're running the risk of crashing
> or damaging your machine by enabling it.
> 
> Scott

I've got very little knowledge in the hardware department and fairly
"decent" knowledge in the software department (although I've never used
Vi or Emacs and have never seen any reason to - Kate and Nano do just
fine). I've been using Linux on and off since 1999 and Computers in
general since 1994.

But I digress....

Now in response to your statement.

Why then is DMA enabled every time I install in Windows XP?  If I'm not
mistaken the OS checks my hardware to see if it has DMA. If so, it
enables it.  Every hard drive and controller I've had since 1999 had DMA.

I'm running Dapper right now. DMA was enabled it by default. Either
that, or it was smart enough to determine my drives had DMA.

So why didn't Breezy and Hoary do the same?

Hence, the need for https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DMA

Yes, enabling DMA can be a disaster with incompatible hardware, but if
the OS can't detect the hardware properly in the first place, then what?



-- 
	Scott
www.angrykeyboarder.com
©2006 angrykeyboarder™ & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved