Non-important FATAL Error during boot-up

[ZIYAD A. M. AL-BATLY]

On Thu, 2005-04-07 at 18:22 -0700, Ed Fletcher wrote:
> I had this same problem on my laptop and this fixed it.  However, I am
> curious as to what hw_random is for.  Am I missing something by having
> it on the blacklist?
> 
> Thanks,
> Ed
> - --
> Ed Fletcher
> ed at fletcher.ca

Not much. "hw_random" take advantage of a Hardware Random Generator
found on some new CPU/Mainboard to feed the /dev/random and /dev/urandm
devices. Using this hardware device *may* make it more "random" (which
is a good thing) but the default software random generator found in the
Linux kernel is very excellent (it generate randomness by monitoring
your keyboard stroke/mouse movements/hard-disk reading and writing/IRQ
activates which will give it a really good randomness! It even builds on
old randomness gathered from the day you installed the system!).
"hw_random" will, however, make generating random data faster if it's
supported in your system.

(BTW: I'm using the word "randomness" and I don't know it it's a correct
English word or not!)

Ziyad.