I've a brand-new Dell Inspiron 6000 that I've repartitioned to dual boot
Slackware 10.1 and that "other" operating system. I'm loaded the bare
kernel.

One problem is that I don't know what to do to turn on DMA (the boot
sequence complains that DMA is off and as a result file access will be
pitifully slow; it is). I can't monkey with the BIOS (it won't let you)
and setting the thing in the "other" system doesn't seem to make it work
in Slackware. The thing has an Intel 82801FMB Ultra ATA storage
controller (primary and secondary IDE channel controller) and beyond
that I'm clueless.

Anybody know how to turn on the go-fast switch? Is there a boot option I
haven't been able to discover, anything?

Thanks.

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 23:58:13 +0000, Thomas Ronayne wrote:

> I've a brand-new Dell Inspiron 6000 that I've repartitioned to dual boot
> Slackware 10.1 and that "other" operating system. I'm loaded the bare
> kernel.
> One problem is that I don't know what to do to turn on DMA (the boot
> sequence complains that DMA is off and as a result file access will be
> pitifully slow; it is). I can't monkey with the BIOS (it won't let you)
> and setting the thing in the "other" system doesn't seem to make it work
> in Slackware. The thing has an Intel 82801FMB Ultra ATA storage
> controller (primary and secondary IDE channel controller) and beyond
> that I'm clueless.
> Anybody know how to turn on the go-fast switch? Is there a boot option I
> haven't been able to discover, anything?

upgrade kernel. bare kernel is just what the word says - very simple
kernel, that should boot you until you, preferably, install own custom
kernel.

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 23:58:13 +0000, Thomas Ronayne wrote:

> I've a brand-new Dell Inspiron 6000 that I've repartitioned to dual boot
> Slackware 10.1 and that "other" operating system. I'm loaded the bare
> kernel.
>
> One problem is that I don't know what to do to turn on DMA (the boot
> sequence complains that DMA is off and as a result file access will be
> pitifully slow; it is). I can't monkey with the BIOS (it won't let you)
> and setting the thing in the "other" system doesn't seem to make it work
> in Slackware. The thing has an Intel 82801FMB Ultra ATA storage
> controller (primary and secondary IDE channel controller) and beyond
> that I'm clueless.
>
> Anybody know how to turn on the go-fast switch? Is there a boot option I
> haven't been able to discover, anything?
>
> Thanks.

hdparm as root will provide the options you are looking for.
hdparm -h gives the listing of available options.

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda for example turns on dma for the first ide drive

HTH

The 6000 uses a Intel ICH6M [possibly ICH5 on older models] chipset.

You'll need to enable SATA and SCSI emulation [I was playing with a
2.6.8 kernel] to enjoy even mediocre performance on the Inspiron. I
thought I bought a lemon when I first was stuck with IDE-only access on
mine.