[plug] downloader and Lucent Winmodem

[Russell Steicke]

On Wed, Feb 05, 2003 at 01:25:10PM +0800, Dene Staples wrote:
... 
> I use a 33.6k external Dynalink modem when in Linux, which could account 
> for some of the slowness, but it does seem a bit too slow and stalls 
> often.

This could be a hard disk interrupt problem.  As root, try this:

  # hdparm /dev/hda

You should see some output like:

  /dev/hda:
   multcount    =  0 (off)
   I/O support  =  0 (default 16-bit)
   unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
   using_dma    =  0 (off)
   keepsettings =  0 (off)
   nowerr       =  0 (off)
   readonly     =  0 (off)
   readahead    =  8 (on)
   geometry     = 1027/255/63, sectors = 16498944, start = 0
   busstate     =  1 (on)

Look at the line that says unmaskirq.  If it's off, try this:

  # hdparm -u1 /dev/hda

This will make the IDE driver disable interrupts for smaller periods,
allowing the serial port to get a look in.  If you have two hard disks,
do the same for /dev/hdb.

The man page for hdparm has all sorts of dire warnings about this
option, saying that it can corrupt your filesystems.  In practice I
haven't lost any data, and if the device driver thinks it's dangerous it
seems to turn the option back off itself.



-- 
Russell Steicke

-- Fortune says:
I hear the sound that the machines make, and feel my heart break, just
for a moment.