On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 16:06:56 -0400, Pascal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I don't know how definitive the "Absolute OpenBSD" book is considered >but in chapter 3, "Hardware Setup" it is written: > >"First, set "Plug and Play OS" to NO. This tells your BIOS to do some >basic hardware setup, rather than relying upon the OS to do everything. >Modern versions of Microsoft Windows expect to handle hardware setup. >OpenBSD takes advantage of the BIOS' ability to configure the hardware >itself. Many PCI devices will work poorly if you do not set this option!" > >Pascal With no disrespect meant to you or the authors of Absolute OpenBSD (Palmer and Nazario), it's just too easy to vaguely state what the PNPOS bit does but really understanding how it works is going to take a lot of effort and a lot of reading. According to the specs (linked in a previous post), your typical i386 BIOS firmware "should" be able to configure devices when the PNPOS bit is not set (i.e. "no"). Conversely, if the PNPOS bit is set, the BIOS firmware should only configure devices required for boot (according to the PC98 standard) and let the OS configure everything else. The trouble is this easy answer only "seems" straight forward when you read it in a book or elsewhere. Unfortunately, the reality is that not all hardware/firmware is correctly engineered, so blindly trusting that the hardware/firmware guys got it right is really just a leap of faith. JCR
