Re: Linux 2.6.19-rc2

Jeff Garzik
2006-10-20T21:12:46Z

Alan Cox wrote:
> Ar Gwe, 2006-10-20 am 14:30 -0400, ysgrifennodd Kevin Radloff:
>> On 10/13/06, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote:
>>> Ok, it's a week since -rc1, so -rc2 is out there.
>> A bit behind, but booting still takes ages on my laptop as
>> libata/ata_piix tries to probe a device that isn't there (I reported
>> this previously against -rc1, but got no response):
>
> Probing is somewhat broken in 2.6.18 - something in the core code
> changed as its upset quite a few drivers at once. One case causes
> repeated errors and finally detection of an ATAPI device, the other
> causes repeated errors and then failure when no device is present but
> takes a few minutes and keeps IRQs locked off for long periods. Both
> appear to be fallouts from the new EH code.

There are definitely warts related to the new EH stuff, but specifically
for SATA + ata_piix, it has been a long hard road of trying various
probing mechanisms. Tejun has some patches that revert all the PCS work
and rewinds back to original SATA ata_piix probing, in -mm for testing.

If testing feedback proves positive, let's go ahead and fast-track that
up the line.

With ata_piix, I would worry more about PCS register follies than core
libata. Users can try the module option force_pcs=[0|1|2] to experiment
and see if any of the three possibilities improves their boot.

Jeff