Re: Mysterious mouse prob isolated

[Eric L. Green <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

On 14 Apr 1998, Kjetil Thuen wrote:
> "Casey Bralla" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > On Sun, 12 Apr 1998 12:17:10 +1000 (EST), Db wrote:
> Hm thats strange. Earlier today i opened up my computer to remove some
> dust and stuff. When I reassembled the box, I conneted the wrong serial 
> port to the wrong connector on the Mother board, leaving me with the
> mouse where the modem should be and vice versa. This was solved by
> swapping the serial ports in the bios. Now both the mouse and the
> modem are working correctly under Linux, but not under Win95 (which
> keep complaining that the modem is in use). 
> 
> I am no hardware wizard, but doesnt this suggest that linux is using
> the bios for more than the boot process?

No. Go download the documentation to the TX chipset from Intel's ftp site. 
The serial ports by default do not have any address. At boot time the BIOS
has to poke addresses into the chipset to make the serial ports "appear". 
Once the BIOS pokes that address into the chipset at boot time, the serial
port appears to Linux as if it's hardwired to that address. Thus once
the computer is booted Linux doesn't have to look at the BIOS -- not even
to get drive settings (it queries the drives themselves for those).

Actually, there ARE utilities to access the VGA bios to set the terminal
modes. But that's a different topic. 

Eric Lee Green   [EMAIL PROTECTED]          Executive Consultants
Systems Specialist               Educational Administration Solutions
 "We believe Windows 95 is a walking antitrust violation" -- Bryan Sparks


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