> > > Since there are hundreds of such types of machines, this is not practical.
> > Hmm, I've only heard of a few different brands of laptops that are
> > causing all of the noise.
> Really? I've yet to see a laptop that didn't fail one way or
> another.

My 486-based Toshiba 2110CS does not fail.  I had problems with a
modem card, but that was user brain damage from a user who had
never seen a serial device that required hardware flow control by
default.

That's not to say that it should be fixed.  Another free 4.4BSD
derivative has had a "configuration mode" boot for at least a year
(as someone else pointed out).

I also haven't seen any reaction to the superior (to my mind, in
relation to a sysctl) hack of putting another parameter into the
boot blocks (assuming there's room).  That's not MI, but have we
seen any non-ix86s with this particular problem?

-allen

-- 
                    Allen Briggs - briggs@ninthwonder.com