Re: i810_rng.o on various Dell models

Jeff Garzik
2003-08-13T16:15:05Z

On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 08:44:56AM -0700, Jim Carter wrote:
> In response to a message of Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> dated 2003-08-12
> (Subject was: [RFC][PATCH] Make cryptoapi non-optional?):
>
> I've recently come to the unpleasant conclusion that the reason i810_rng.o
> (kernel 2.4.20) doesn't load on various Dell models (on none of the
> numerous Dell models I've tried) is that the motherboards actually lack the
> hardware random number generator.

This is correct: Intel dropped the RNG after the first few releases of
their ICH chipset (which is now up to ICH5). Not much Dell can do about
it.

Intel's RNG was slow anyway, compared to the AMG and now VIA RNGs, so
you didn't want it anyway :) I really like VIA's "xstore", which is an
RNG implemented via a CPU instruction. That way you don't need a kernel
driver at all, really.

Jeff