Re: NB3 ALi1543C IDE DMA transfer error

["Toru Nishimura" <locore64%alkyltechnology.com@localhost>]

> I've switched to the ABLE firmware these days.  I haven't seen any size 
> problems with that, even when tftp booting - plus you can now boot the ELF 
> kernels directly.

It's the question I want to ask next.  Thanks.  It seems worthwhile to upgrade
CATS bootloader to ABLE.  I have v206 image at hand.

> I see my disk being downgraded from UDMA-2 to UDMA-1 (but it normally 
> doesn't go further than that).  There's something very dodgy with the PCI 
> timing going on somewhere (but it might well be in the hardware).  I've 
> had similar problems with cd-rom drives (and especially with cd-rw drives).

The DMA issue may be removed since transfer error symptom might be
caused by ARM (Footbridge?) dependent code.

> I also suspect that this may also be responsible for some of the other 
> hacks that I have to use (to fix the mii probing in the tulip ethernet 
> card,

tlp0 was found complete useless for 2.1 and 3.0 kernel.  I hooked sip0
instead.  It's somehow relieving to see that USB is quite stable.  USB
keyboard, USB bar code scanner, SCSI HD disguise memory disk,
and USB serial adaptor work well for me.

And here is today's special.  ARM Atheros WLAN can work well for
ARM architecture (artificially crafted applause audio effect here)

ath0: interrupting at irq 18
ath0: 11a rates: 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
ath0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
ath0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 
36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
ath0: turboA rates: 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
ath0: turboG rates: 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
ath0: mac 5.9 phy 4.3 radio 3.6
...
$ /sbin/ifconfig ath0
ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        ssid GW-AP54SGX
        powersave off
        bssid 00:90:cc:0f:70:42 chan 6
        address: 00:02:6f:21:ed:6d
        media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (OFDM18 mode 11g)
        status: active
        inet 192.168.24.57 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.24.255
        inet6 fe80::202:6fff:fe21:ed6d%ath0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
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