Re: [gentoo-dev] Installation Gotchas

[Morgan Christiansson <mog@linux.nu>]

Achim Gottinger wrote:

> "Bruce A. Locke" wrote:
> 
>> Hello...
>> 
>> I did my first non-vmware (aka on real hardware) install of Gentoo and was
>> wondering about the following:
>> 
>> - If DMA is going to be on by default in the kernel would it be possible to
>> include hdparm on the cd image so people with harddrives, etc that have
>> issues with DMA can turn it off after the cd boots?  I had to create a 10mb
>> partition and untar the hdparm package because the HD would freak out with
>> DMA turned on under lightload. (Yes I know, old cheap harddrive)
> 
> 
> Ok hdparam will be there.

You could let the user enable/disable it before booting, like this:

grep no_dma /proc/cmdline>/dev/null || enable_dma()

or the opposite

grep no_dma /proc/cmdline >/dev/null && disable_dma()

Some more advanced syntax could be added too, such as no_dma=hda,hdb but 
that's problably overdoing it. Shouldn't there be a kernel option for 
this in the first place anyway?

-- 
Morgan Christiansson