Re: FC3/x86_64 + cdrecord.(i386|x86_64): what gives?

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

On Mon, 2005-05-09 at 07:18 -0500, Nathaniel Reindl wrote:
> That did it.  And interestingly enough, I haven't ever had DMA
> problems with this burner.  I'm intrigued now about this...

Chipset or kernel changes can induce it.
DMA is one of those buggers that are a PITA.

Intel and ViA seem to like to change their ATA logic regularly.  ViA is
especially a PITA, and several non-ATAPI standard compliant drives will
drive you bonkers on ViA chipsets, and earlier Intel ICH southbridges
(post-PIIX).  But Intel has been more pro-active on Linux support as of
late, at least on the ICH5/ICH6 southbridges, which is a good thing.
And they are at the forefront on AHCI (Advanced Host Control Interface
-- an intelligent software approach to controlling up to 32 SATA
devices).

My best luck over a long period of time have been with AMD and SiS.
They seem to make all their ATA logic compatible with their legacy
AMD751 and SiS5513, respectively.  I haven't checked on more recent SiS
chipsets, but AMD is still in even their 8000 series.  I really prefer
to deploy AMD and SiS for corporate systems as a result, although SiS
does seem to give me I2C/I2O fits when I get lots of intelligent boards.

More recently, I've had 0 issues with nVidia.  I always recommend kernel
2.4.23+ or 2.6.5+ for nVidia nForce2/3/4/2x00 bliss.  nVidia puts a
_lot_ of people on the GPL kernel and MIT Xorg drivers, and their
Freedomware drivers have resulted in very, very compatible/reliable
chipset, ATA, even SATA (although AHCI support is far behind Intel, but
legacy ATA via a SCSI driver works works), FireWire, USB, etc... as well
as Xorg 2D video (even VIVO, video-in, video-out), support is
outstanding.  ALSA support of their audio logic is extremely good as
well (don't use the old OSS driver, that was just a stop-gap driver
prior to ALSA).

The only thing nVidia is contractually forbidden to support is their NIC
(the GPL forcedeth works well for 10/100, but not quite 1000 yet) and
the 3D/GLX drivers.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                 b.j.smith@ieee.org 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
Beware of those who define their preference in terms of hate of
another option, and not on the positive merits of their selection



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