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authorJesse Barnes <jbarnes@virtuousgeek.org>2005-12-13 03:05:03 -0500
committerJeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>2005-12-13 03:05:03 -0500
commit2bd0fa3b62e8565a80f9535e0f2bd51bba46213f (patch)
tree9364e413a6500cbe47703e50ce6f13e7a2dab756 /Documentation
parente508a391a0705f770ef1c4f1c304678b0e8e4fe8 (diff)
[PATCH] add boot option to control Intel SATA/PATA combined mode
Combined mode sucks. Especially when both libata and the legacy IDE drivers try to drive ports on the same device, since that makes DMA rather difficult. This patch addresses the problem by allowing the user to control which driver binds to the ports in a combined mode configuration. In many cases, they'll probably want the libata driver to control both ports since it can use DMA for talking with ATAPI devices (when libata.atapi_enabled=1 of course). It also allows the user to get old school behavior by letting the legacy IDE driver bind to both ports. But neither is forced, the patch doesn't change current behavior unless one of combined_mode=ide or combined_mode=libata is passed on the boot line. Either of those options may require you to access your devices via different device nodes (/dev/hd* in the ide case and /dev/sd* in the libata case), though of course if you have udev installed nicely you may not notice anything. :) Let me know if the documentation is too cryptic, I'd be happy to expand on it if necessary. I think most users will want to boot with 'combined_mode=libata' and add 'options libata atapi_enabled=1' to their modules.conf to get good DVD playing and disk behavior (haven't tested CD or DVD writing though). I'd much rather things behave sanely by default (i.e. DMA for devices on both ports), but apparently that's difficult given the various chip bugs and hardware configs out there (not to mention that people's drives may suddenly change from /dev/hdc to /dev/sdb), so this boot option may be the correct long term fix. Signed-off-by: Jesse Barnes <jbarnes@virtuousgeek.org> Signed-off-by: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt8
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
index 5dffcfefc3c7..61a56b100c62 100644
--- a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
+++ b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
@@ -633,6 +633,14 @@ running once the system is up.
633 inport.irq= [HW] Inport (ATI XL and Microsoft) busmouse driver 633 inport.irq= [HW] Inport (ATI XL and Microsoft) busmouse driver
634 Format: <irq> 634 Format: <irq>
635 635
636 combined_mode= [HW] control which driver uses IDE ports in combined
637 mode: legacy IDE driver, libata, or both
638 (in the libata case, libata.atapi_enabled=1 may be
639 useful as well). Note that using the ide or libata
640 options may affect your device naming (e.g. by
641 changing hdc to sdb).
642 Format: combined (default), ide, or libata
643
636 inttest= [IA64] 644 inttest= [IA64]
637 645
638 io7= [HW] IO7 for Marvel based alpha systems 646 io7= [HW] IO7 for Marvel based alpha systems