[parisc-linux] [OT] PCI hardware question

[Grant Grundler]

eddantes@wanadoo.fr wrote:
> I'm planning to buy a second hand station at some point and have fun 
> with Linux, but in the documentation process, I discovered some stations 
> have problemw with PCI hardware.
> 
> The question is: which kind of PCI stuff is this? Regular, PC compatible 
> cards, or HP specific?

HP specific PCI Host bus adapter called Dino (aka GSCtoPCI).
See hwdb.parisc-linux.org to know which systems used it.
Some systems have been fixed with a newer rev of the Dino chip.
You can:
o update the PDC and install a PCI card
o boot parisc-linux
o or look for -0004 on the IO board

to figure out if the PCI is usable or not.
Only HP PCI graphics cards are permitted to be used in PCI
when a broken DINO rev is in the system. PDC revs higher
than about 5.x will enforce this.

Read comments in drivers/gsc/dino.c for more details.

grant