[SGVLUG] New kernel 2.6.21 supports my video card

[John Jefferson Lowry IV]

Isnzt there supposed to an auto-balancer for IRQs?

the other nice things is the fixit livecds become a lot friendlier to
use on older hardware. I run some Windows 2K3 servers at work, that
need some hardware TLC and Knoppix has saved the day more than once
after a bad firmware update.

On 8/3/07, David Lawyer <dave at lafn.org> wrote:
> A few weeks ago I read about the 6.21 kernel and installed it on my
> Pentium I, 100 MHz.  It's claimed that it now correctly supports the
> old S3 video cards like mine (c. 1994).  The module is s3fb (fb =
> frame buffer) but it doesn't set itself up to load and I suppose I
> should type its name in /etc/modules.
>
> With this, can I use multimedia (movies)?  I can't seem to get my
> sound card to work (except on the default irq5 which is no good since
> my modem uses irq5 and both modem and sound cards are ISA that don't
> share irqs).  I set the jumpers on the sound card to irq=2 but the
> driver module resets the irq to 5.  I've filed a bug report and
> someone responded and is working on it and asked me for more info on
> the problem.
>
> So this is an example of how Linux does, to some degree, support old
> hardware, but to use this old hardware one needs to know about irqs,
> configuration files, and file bug reports, etc.  I doubt if most
> people know the symptoms of an interrupt conflict where the software
> doesn't sense the conflict.  Even without interrupts, devices still
> work but in a very degraded manner.  For sound, I hear only a word or
> two and then it stops => interrupt conflict.
>
> So it's poor people that should be using this old hardware that they
> can now get for free I suppose.  But these people are not likely to
> know how to get it working.  Is there any solution to this dilemma.
> Perhaps. Better documentation.  But who's willing to do it?
>
> 			David Lawyer
>


-- 
John Lowry