hdparm

[Stephen R Laniel]

On Fri, May 13, 2005 at 02:28:17AM +0800, Trent Lloyd wrote:
> Because on lots of hardware it breaks and causes all sorts of issues.

So there's another place where I have to ask: why can't the
boot process just be smart and figure out whether the given
CD-ROM drive that it's working with can handle DMA? Maybe
there'd be a certification list, and if you're on the list
you get DMA turned on. Make the cert. list really rigorous,
if you want to eliminate false positives.

What's wrong with this approach? Why doesn't Linux use it?

A lot of people on here have noted that their CD ripping
speeds are much faster under Windows. And yet Windows users
don't need to worry about turning DMA off or on; at least in
this case, it seems to Just Work for them. So it's more
convenient and faster. Seems like Linux should strive to
emulate that.

I realize, by the way, that Linux has a structural
disadvantage, in that hardware vendors provide specs to
Microsoft that they don't provide to Linux distros. BIOSes,
I understand, are an especially egregious example of this.
But does this explain why Linux isn't optimized for, say,
CD-ROM drives?

-- 
Stephen R. Laniel
steve at laniels.org
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http://laniels.org/
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