Hi,

I just installed 2.6.11.10a following Grant Coady's mini-HOWTO on this list.
Everything went OK, except I get the following error message at boot time:

*****************
Warning: the dma on your hard drive is turned off. This may really slow down
the fsck process
*****************

What am I supposed to do now?

Niki Kovacs
--
I'm not as think as you stoned I am.

have u installed hdparm?
and turn it on at init?
>.^

lancelot

Niki Kovacs wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just installed 2.6.11.10a following Grant Coady's mini-HOWTO on this list.
> Everything went OK, except I get the following error message at boot time:
>
> *****************
> Warning: the dma on your hard drive is turned off. This may really slow down
> the fsck process
> *****************
>
> What am I supposed to do now?
>
> Niki Kovacs

Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> trolled:
> Hi,
>
> I just installed 2.6.11.10a following Grant Coady's mini-HOWTO on this list.
> Everything went OK, except I get the following error message at boot time:
>
> *****************
> Warning: the dma on your hard drive is turned off. This may really slow down
> the fsck process
> *****************
>
> What am I supposed to do now?

Write an article about it for the French Magazine.

cordially, as always,

rm
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Niki Kovacs wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just installed 2.6.11.10a following Grant Coady's mini-HOWTO on this
> list. Everything went OK, except I get the following error message at boot
> time:
>
> *****************
> Warning: the dma on your hard drive is turned off. This may really slow
> down the fsck process
> *****************
>
> What am I supposed to do now?

I have this same message. I have ignored it for several months now, and
nothing bad has happened. It came when I started using ReiserFS, so it may
be associated with that. But I haven't bothered too Google on it...

--
jjg

Hi Niki,
On Sun, 29 May 2005 11:48:04 +0200, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:

>I just installed 2.6.11.10a following Grant Coady's mini-HOWTO on this list.
>Everything went OK, except I get the following error message at boot time:
>
>*****************
>Warning: the dma on your hard drive is turned off. This may really slow down
>the fsck process
>*****************
>
>What am I supposed to do now?

Don't take somebody else's custom .config and use it without tuning
it to your hardware. I made no claims for 'universal' config, each
one is tuned to particular hardware I have, okay? Onwards...

Run lspci and look for IDE or SATA line, three examples:

Intel chipset:
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)

Another Intel:
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371FB PIIX IDE [Triton I] (rev 02)

Via chipset:
00:0f.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80)
00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)

Then visit the menuconfig: Device Drivers - ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
page and select what matches _your_ hardware:

example from via chipset box:

Intel:
< > Intel PIIXn chipsets support
.. . .
Via:
<*> VIA82CXXX chipset support

If you have SATA drives, also visit Device Drivers
- SCSI device support - SCSI low-level drivers

And turn on SATA driver, in my case:

Via:
[*] Serial ATA (SATA) support
.. . .
<*> VIA SATA support

Always turn on SCSI disk support, it is required for some (all?)
USB-storage devices.

And, when you 'playing' with these new .configs, also visit:

General setup - Local version - append to kernel release

and add numbers, letters something smaller than ~ 6 chars (no blanks).

Save that, do a make ... add to bootloader and try again, always
make sure you can reboot to distro kernel when 'play' kernel fails.

Keep trying until you 'get' it. I've been where you're at now,
it does get easier over time. Once it 'clicks' and you see linux
running as intended and it is _much_ better performer than the
general distro kernel. Distro kernel sacrifices performance so it
gets GNU/Linux onto your hardware, custom kernel gains performance
at cost of _only_ running properly on targeted hardware.


DMA is turned off 'cos system fell back to PIO mode 'cos it been
told to use wrong driver for _your_ HDD controller. Linux very
forgiving. Unlike the msft 'end-luser experience'... )

--Grant.

Grant Coady wrote:

> Keep trying until you 'get' it.**I've*been*where*you're*at*now,
> it does get easier over time.**Once*it*'clicks'*and*you*see*linux
> running as intended and it is much better performer than the
> general distro kernel.**Distro*kernel*sacrifices*performance*so*i t
> gets GNU/Linux onto your hardware, custom kernel gains performance
> at cost of only running properly on targeted hardware.
>
>
> DMA is turned off 'cos system fell back to PIO mode 'cos it been
> told to use wrong driver for your HDD controller.**Linux*very
> forgiving.**Unlike*the*msft*'end-luser*experience'...*)

Thanks for your detailed and competent explanations, Grant! I really
appreciate.

Unfortunately, there seem to be no decent docs around concerning kernel
*configuration* in itself. Tons of docs about installing sources, compiling
and installing, but every single one is rather elliptic about the
configuration process in itself. Which is a pity, somehow. I wouldn't mind
reading a thick book about it, since I'm not lazy for reading docs (with
Slackware, you'd better notD). On the other hand, reading every single
help file on every option in make menuconfig (or, more readable, xconfig)
doesn't seem to get me very far either. Well, later maybe, but in the
beginning, it's rather confusing. I'd really appreciate a related doc that
would explain the items in order of importance ("First, be sure to turn
<...> on/off so as to be able to ..."). Well, maybe this doc exists, and I
just didn't manage to find it?

I understood your .config was a stripped-to-the-bone no-bullshit-config. And
yes, I knew about hardware specificity. I managed to tune it to my
processor and sound card, but was a bit lost as to what to tune it to next.

General idea, correct me if I'm wrong. Take a "stripped-down" .config like
the one I found on your site ("Wheezy Badger", IIRCD), then issue
cat /proc/cpuinfo and /sbin/lspci to check the hardware, and then configure
accordingly.

One other thing. When I tried your .config, I got messages like, for
example, "FATAL: module ps_mouse not found" or something like that. I
checked the .config and saw that PS2 mouse support was compiled statically
into the kernel. So, why does it (it = façon de parlerD) try to load the
module anyway?

Suggestion: when you have a couple minutes left, why not write a sort of
"kernel configuration for the desktop". Nothing very detailed, just a
memento of things to do and not do.

Anyway: thanks!

Niki Kovacs
--
I'm not as think as you stoned I am.

On Mon, 30 May 2005 12:28:22 +0200, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:

>Unfortunately, there seem to be no decent docs around concerning kernel
>*configuration* in itself.

Only:
grant@sempro:/usr/src/linux-2.6.11.11a/Documentation$ du -sh
7.6M .

of plain text documentation in the kernel source tree.

--Grant.

Niki Kovacs wrote:
> Suggestion: when you have a couple minutes left, why not write a sort of
> "kernel configuration for the desktop". Nothing very detailed, just a
> memento of things to do and not do.

Yes, and submit it to The Slack World as a `featured article'. :-)
I guess it won't take less than a couple of hours though.


Mikhail

Grant Coady wrote:

> Only:
> grant@sempro:/usr/src/linux-2.6.11.11a/Documentation$ du -sh
> 7.6M****.
>
> of plain text documentation in the kernel source tree.

I know. I feel like asking my wife for one of her delicious cooking
receipts... and she gives me a 24-volume encyclopoedia of biochemistry to
read)

Niki Kovacs
--
I'm not as think as you stoned I am.

On 30 May 2005 07:10:35 -0700, "Mikhail Zotov" <muxaul@lenta.ru> wrote:
>Niki Kovacs wrote:
>> Suggestion: when you have a couple minutes left, why not write a sort of
>> "kernel configuration for the desktop". Nothing very detailed, just a
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^--> I don't use GNU/Linux desktop.
>> memento of things to do and not do.

One of the joys of making friends with unix is the endless learning, me
no expert. Still learning. I put up examples in the hope they stretch
or add to the 'ideas factory', but there are myriad ways to run computing
environment.

I choose a hybrid, networked system, so yesterday I could pull lspci
examples from three boxen running slackware, another box is msft GUI
interface running the system. Why? X is too slow, desktop over X is
disaster for me, compared to msft on same hardware.

I used to run NEdit on icewm over vnc, slackware taught me vim is
syntax highlighting editor, so I no longer bother with lightweight
GUI, lots of PuTTY terminals instead. Shell scripting is fun.

I belong to the group that considers a GUI as simply a neat way to
have many CLI sessions running )
>
>Yes, and submit it to The Slack World as a `featured article'. :-)
>I guess it won't take less than a couple of hours though.

You'd have to find me in a particular mood to do that, communication
is _not_ my forte. Information theory: before one can communicate,
both parties must agree on a common dictionary.

The skill I lack is in being able to effectively describe _my_
dictionary, prior to presenting info. I wouldn't mind being part
of a deeper documentation project, but not intro level, I lack the
patience.

--Grant.