Re: Direct PCI Access

[Mark Mitchell <carcus88@gmail.com>]

Alain wrote:

>>> Your right about the packet driver, that should work but if my PCI
>>> Channel card uses DMA I'm pretty much screwed right?
>>
>>
>> No, the packet driver will work in any case.
>> Direct access will not, but who cares if the
>> packet driver does the trick.
>
>
> Packet driver has a connection with Linux kernel and not with the 
> hardware. That is why it will allways work. Just the same as graphic 
> will allways work under X, as it completely ignore the real hardware.
>
> But I would like to ask a question: If you are interfacing with a very 
> expensive Hardware, why don't you just dedicate a machine exclusively 
> for that? A new machine would cost a small fraction of that PCI board 
> alone...
>
> Alain
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-msdos" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>
We are dedicating a machine to just that purpose but the problem is the 
current dedicated machine runs DOS and nothing else. This limits us to 
how we can spool data and modify forms on the machine.

My idea is to run Linux on a dedicated machine with dosemu running the 
spool sofware inside Linux. This will allow me to access the DOS drive 
from Linux and Windows via the network and SMB. I can then create custom 
jobs and forms without going over to the physical DOS box.

So is the "Packet Driver" a way to connect DOS to the PCI bus or a way 
to connect DOS to a PCI Network card only? Packet sounds kinda 
networkish and may be confusing me.

- Mark