[Fedora] Re: Did I make a mistake in starting with Fedora Core 4?

[Ashley M. Kirchner]

Dave Gutteridge wrote:

> It's not a dumb question at all, at least not to me. I do not know how 
> to "boot with ide=nodma". How do I set that so that the boot process 
> will execute with that configuration? 

    You can set that in your current grub.conf file:

    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-1.1398_FC4 ro root=LABEL=/ ide=nodma

    Or, if you're starting from scratch (with an install CD/DVD in the 
drive), type 'linux ide=nodma' at the prompt.
    Or, if you already have it installed, you'll have to go through the 
boot sequence to do that (at the splash page.)  I haven't done that in a 
long time so I don't remember the sequence of commands to get to edit 
the boot line, but I'm sure someone here can help with that.

> Perhaps I don't understand the implications of that command, but that 
> does seem to run counter to what I've been hearing so far. I had 
> gained the impression that DMA is something I want to have running for 
> optimal performance, and that my current DMA configuration is somehow 
> flawed. Am I wrong in my understanding that DMA is always desireable?

    DMA is desirable, yes, however it may not always be desirable.  In 
your case, with the DVD drive giving DMA errors, I'd at least try 
running the system without dma on the IDE bus to see if there's any kind 
of difference at all.  I have several FC3 and one FC4 machine running 
just fine like that.

-- 
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