serial port too fast for Core Duo?

[Alan Cox]

> Using a USB-to-RS232 dongle works, presumably because the dongle has a 
> larger buffer than the normal 16 byte UART.
> 
> Can linux really not handle a 19200 serial port transmission, without 
> resorting to obscure IRQ re-prioritization hacks?

We can do 57600 without trying on a typical PC usually a lot more.

On some cheaper chipsets you sometimes get problems mixing heavy I/O or
graphics loads with serial traffic (and often sound too) as the graphics
hardware or disk controller can lock the CPU out for long periods of
time. Really ought to be on Intel with Intel video.

The core duo's are not the fastest thing on the planet but you should
certainly be doing better than 19200 and it would be interesting to know
more - eg if particular activities seem to trigger it or whether you lose
characters at regular intervals (a common sign of icky BIOS SMM traps
losing the CPU for long periods to do stuff like battery management)

Could also be another driver is being extremely rude and locking
interrupts off excessively

Alan.