582 Chapter 19 Study Guide

Scenarios

1.An administrator is installing two ATA/IDE hard drives, and an IDE CD-ROM drive into a Linux machine. The system contains two IDE controllers. What is the best configuration for these devices?

Answers to Chapter Questions

Chapter Pre-test

1.An IRQ is an interrupt request line — a resource used to tell the CPU that a device has data that needs to be processed.

2.The SCSI host adapter should be ID 7 to give it the highest priority on the SCSI bus.

3.APM stands for advanced power management, which can help with saving battery power on laptops by shutting down devices when not in use.

4.The kernel will need SMP support for multiprocessing capabilities.

5.To configure an IDE hard drive as a master or slave, you need to set its jumpers to a particular setting.

6.ECC memory can perform error checking and correcting.

7.The BIOS (Basic Input Output System) contains code to control all basic devices and operations of the computer, and provides an interface between the operating system and hardware.

8.The kernel needs to support PCMCIA, which is used for laptop card and devices.

9.A SCSI bus needs to be terminated to prevent electronic signals from reflecting back onto the bus.

10.USB stands for Universal Serial Bus, an advanced form of serial bus that is very fast, and can connect several devices together at once.

Assessment Questions

1.A. The default IRQ for a floppy drive is IRQ 6. IRQ 4 is for COM1, IRQ 5 is for LPT2, and IRQ 7 is for LPT 1. For review, see the “System Resources” section.

2.C. The host adapter should be set to ID 7 to give it the highest priority on the bus. For review, see the “SCSI device configuration” section.

3.D. The parallel port uses I/O address 378-37F. The I/O address 1F0 – 1F8 is used for the Hard drive controller, I/O address 278 – 27F is used for LPT 2, and 2F8 – 2FF is used for COM2. For review, see the “System Resources” section.

Chapter 19 Study Guide 583

4.D. For two IDE drives, one should be configured as the master, and one should be configured as the slave. If you had another channel, you could take the slave drive and install it as a master on that channel. For review, see the “IDE drive configuration” section.

5.B. A single IDE controller can handle up to two devices. For review, see the “IDE drive configuration” section.

6.A. A laptop card slot uses the PCMCIA standard. For review, see the “Laptop Considerations” section.

7.A. Utilizing USB hubs, you can theoretically use up to 127 devices. For review, see the “Linux Support for Other Devices” section.

8.C. The red stripe on the edge of an IDE cable signifies that it should go to pin 1 on the drive and mainboard connectors. If it is reversed, it may damage the components. For review, see the “IDE drive configuration” section.

9.D. The drive /dev/sda is the first SCSI drive on the system. IDE drives are indicated by /dev/hda, hdb, etc. For review, see the “Linux SCSI Devices” section.

10.B. To support multiprocessing, your kernel needs to have SMP (Symmetrical Multiprocessing) support. For review, see the “CPU” section.

11.A. In order for your video card to be supported under Linux, it needs to be supported by your X-windows application. For review, see the “Linux Peripheral Configuration” section.

12.D. To utilize power management on laptops running Linux, the BIOS and the Linux kernel need to support APM (Advanced Power Management). For review, see the “Laptop Considerations” section.

13.C. The serial port COM 1 uses IRQ4. It also shares this with COM 3. For review, see the “System Resources” section.

14.C. The bus should always be properly terminated at the ends of the chain. For review, see the “SCSI Device Configuration” section.

15.D. Serial ports COM2 and COM4 share IRQ 3. For review, see the “System Resources” section.

16.A. In order to run multiprocessing, the kernel must support SMP. This must be compiled into the kernel if it does not already support it. For review, see the “CPU” section.

17.B. Before installing any device, you should check to see if it’s compatible with the Linux kernel, and if you have a proper driver for the device. For review, see the “Linux Peripheral Configuration” section.

18.C. ECC memory performs error checking and correction. For review, see the “System memory” section.

19.B. The first rewinding SCSI tape drive is set to /dev/st0. The no-rewind tape would be set at /dev/nst0. For review, see the “Linux SCSI devices” section.

20.C. Some older kernels won’t recognize memory over 64MB. To enable the extra RAM, it has to be specified in the LILO configuration file. For review, see the “System memory” section.

584 Chapter 19 Study Guide

Scenarios

1.It is easiest to assign the two hard drives to one controller, and the CD-ROM to the other controller. If you have the CD-ROM and a hard drive on the same controller, it may cause performance issues because the CD-ROM is much slower than the hard drive.

Configure the first hard drive as the master, and the second hard drive as a slave on the first controller.

The CD-ROM can then be installed as a master on the second controller.