OK all, I'm trying to help here. I'm giving a clear description of a problem, the hardware it affects, and the proposed solution.
PROBLEM: Installer kernel hangs at IDE probe when the ali15x3 driver is loaded and attempts to probe devices. The last few lines of output are: [...etc...] ALI15X3: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 78 PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 00:0f.0. Please try using pci=biosirq. ALI15X3: chipset revision 195 ALI15X3: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later That's it, it hangs dead at this point where it would normally probe the ide devices. The alt1 kernel which uses generic, non-dma IDEPCI does boot but does not support kernel pcmcia or any filesystem but ext2. :( Kernel options pci=biosirq and ide=nodma do nothing to prevent this lockup. HARDWARE: Fujitsu Lifebook P-2040, which uses an ALi 1533 PCI bridge and ALi 5229 IDE controller. SOLUTION PROPOSED: Unset CONFIG_BLK_DEV_ALI15X3=y (and CONFIG_WDC_ALI15X3=y, if configured) in the .config for the install kernel and recompile it without ali15x3 support. REASONING: The features of the ali15x3 driver are not necessary to the install process, and the alt1 kernel is not sufficiently feature complete for laptop installations (i.e. no kernel pcmcia support, no journaling or encrypted filesystems supported). Here's the part where I complain about the Mandrake bug reporting process: This is my third report of this bug here - I haven't recieved a reply or response or any acknowledgment at all, either privately or on the list. Please note that I did not come here first - I tried to jump through the bugzilla hoops, the mandrakeexpert hoops, and even the mandrakeforum hoops - my bugzilla account can't post new bugs (I did search for dupes and found none), mandrakeexpert won't let me post a question to mdk employees (despite the US$80 donation I made when I downloaded 8.1 instead of purchasing a retail box), and I never recieved my mandrakeforum password when I tried to register (twice!). Please restore my faith in this organization by at least replying to this message, even if only to say "**** off!" - that would be better than silence. Thanks, -Isaac
