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SubjectRe: de4x5.c patch against 2.1.117
On Thu, 27 Aug 1998, Chris Wedgwood wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 26, 1998 at 07:13:48PM -0700, Dan Hollis wrote:
> > Most PCI cards tend to be ~50% more expensive than PnP ISA ones. So
> > there are big economic reasons to go ISA, even though it is
> > antiquated.
> That gap is closing, so I think the real reason we need ISA support
> is for antiquated cards.

Well we support non-PnP ISA cards which are even more antiquated. I dont
see any reason why anyone would advocate excluding an entire class of
hardware simply because they dont like the interface.

> > Linux has never really supported PnP, and now I hear people trying
> > to avoid _any_ support entirely. Gah.
> What's wrong with the userspace support?

Nothing. But I dont think its entirely appropriate to do it 100% in
userspace (which would exclude monolithic kernels).

> > I thought the point of Linux was to try to support as much hardware
> > as possible, even broken ones (eg Intel EtherExpress).
> I think supporting as much hardware as possible is ver admirable, but
> not at the expense of sane hardware.

Im not sure how adding PnP support is at the "expense" of sane hardware.

> That said, if kernel PnP is a compile time option, people are free to
> choose.

Yes. If they dont want PnP support, they can exclude it with no "expense".

> > A good percentage of multimedia cards are PnP. In fact most recent
> > soundchips (CS423x, ESS18xx) are PnP. Motherboards come with PnP
> > soundchips embedded. And Linux doesnt really support any of them
> > :-/
> Are these connected to a PCI or ISA bus? I assume the later?

Yes. ISA. Only a very small percentage of soundcards are PCI these days.

Yes, this is changing. But theres a LOT of legacy hardware out there we
should be supporting. Linux is supporting hardware thats far more broken
than PnP is.

> In particular for the case of mm stuff - userspace init of the card
> then moduling loading seems appropriate.

Yes -- when modules are appropriate. However there are still reasons
people use monolithic kernels. Your approach would 100% exclude them.

There should be a halfway approach that would satisfy both camps. Eg those
who want PnP in monolithic kernels and those who dont want to touch PnP
with a 10 meter pole.

> > Is it any wonder why multimedia support on Linux still lags...
> Mostly because most mm vendors are completely anal and won't rellease
> specs.

Nah. We have plenty of cards where the specs are available and people cant
adequately use them due to lack of PnP support.

I'm no fan of PnP in general, so don't take this as advocating the PnP
specification itself, but rather advocating proper support for PnP
devices.

> Anyone got details on the i740?

Maybe I can twist some arms at Intel labs. :-)

-Dan


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