Bottom line: If you haven't done it yet, become root on your computer and go:
hdparm /dev/hda
or whatever hdX you have as your hard disk.
You'll have a line saying "using_dma = 1 (on)". But if the line says that your DMA is off, I suggest start thinking about doing something about it (I *didn't* say turn it on right away). It's worth the effort. It's a HUGE difference.
Now the long story: ==================
You all owe me a great Mazal Tov. Two, as a matter of fact.
The first is because after using Linux for five years, I compiled the kernel for the first time today. A 2.4.21, to be exact. And it seems to work like a charm.
Actually, I enjoyed every minute of it. I needed a good excuse to get into it, and I had one.
The second Mazal Tov is because 2.4.21 recognizes 845PE's IDE controller, and hence the DMA was automatically enabled. And voila, the system runs smoothly even when the disk is heavily used.
And it's running much faster. As a matter of fact, everything feels faster now. It's really like a different computer.
Aftermath: =========
The really bothering thing about this is the impression that other people may get of Linux, as a heavy OS. You may not have liked my tone about all this, but it's still much better than you'll get from those that we're trying to convince using Linux. Five years of Linux is enough to stick to it, despite a complaint here and there. What are newbies thinking when their GUI freezes as they untar something large?
Anyhow, I've filed a report to bugzilla at Red Hat (enhancement), recommending to issue a warning during installation when the DMA is off.
Yes, some of you told me to upgrade the kernel in the first place, but I'm always told to upgarde the kernel when something doesn't work well. And until now (five years), playing with the kernel has turned out unnecessary. Some of you like to play with the kernel, and I may start to like it myself, but with a linmodem whose drivers were a bit nasty to compile last time, I had all reasons not to jump to that solution before being convinced it might do something.
Neither was I too happy with fiddling with hdparm, to be very honest. Forcing DMA on a drive which didn't get that naturally, sounded scary to me. A disk crash is not what I needed right now. But in the end, that kind of direct fiddling wasn't needed either.
It was only after I ran those speed tests, that it occured to me that Ilya had the best lead: Windows was both faster and smoother, so maybe the DMA *was* the thing. So thanks, Ilya.
Only when I tried to enable the DMA, and hdparm refused, did I realize that the IDE controller wasn't recognized (it was by googling the error message I got from hdparm).
That's when upgrading the kernel finally made sense.
As a final remark -- you may not have liked my tone throughout this thread. And it's true that I wouldn't have sounded like this, if Windows did the same tricks, simply because I don't expect much from an MS-based system.
But when Linux pulls tricks on me, I feel betrayed. Now, when the problem is fixed, I also realize that I had very good reasons to be annoyed. And I think this whole IDE thing should have been handled better by the system. All I needed was a descriptive warning, not a side comment in /var/log/dmesg.
Let's hope at least Red Hat will do something with my report.
Regards, Eli
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