[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       jaxlug-list
Subject:    Re: [JAXLUG] Identifying NICs & Firewall Questions
From:       Bruce-Robert Pocock <BRPocock () Sidereal ! Net>
Date:       2006-05-30 13:41:32
Message-ID: 1148996492.10151.4.camel () localhost ! localdomain
[Download RAW message or body]

On Thu, 2006-05-25 at 18:16 -0400, Tim Holloway wrote:

> It would be polite for hardware to be designed - and Linux startup to be
> configured - so that the internal bus that manages the onboard NICs to
> configure first, followed by PCI slots, followed by USB. I have little
> doubt that at least some hardware manufacturers have managed to be
> impolite.

Generally, "all" machines (omitting Apple, Sun, SGI, and mainframes)
have only the one PCI bus. Soldered-on chips are basically just "PCI
cards in fixed slots." (AGP is a special case. It's a bit like having a
second PCI bus with only the one card on it. Apple machines typically
have 2-3 PCI buses, depending on whether AGP counts; e.g. a 2001 iBook
has 2 "regular" PCI buses and the AGP chipset.)

USB host controllers are PCI devices, so they have to be initialized
after the PCI bus.

However, SCSI, Firewire, ATA, and other disc host controllers are also
PCI devices, so the PCI bus has to pass through multiple rounds of
initialization, since the kernel will need hard disc access in order to
get far enough in the boot process to care about things like NIC's and
USB (excepting embedded stuff where the boot filesystem is in ROM).


_______________________________________________
Jaxlug-list mailing list
Jaxlug-list@jaxlug.org
http://mailman.jaxlug.org/mailman/listinfo/jaxlug-list
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]