by I'm want to use Linux on a Compaq 486/25SL notebook. I'm stuck on
the following issues and would appreciate any pointers.
1 I believe the video ROM is being shadowed. The BIOS setup
has options to shadow the video ROM at two different addresses,
but none to turn it off.
2 Some memory is reserved, presumably for shadowing arcane stuff,
including but not limited to battery management pop-ups (or is that
in the video RAM?).
3 Who is reserving this memory? Does the BIOS do it? Or is it DOS?
Since Linux (Debian) install instructions ask you to turn off all
shadowing, I can do that automatically if DOS is doing the shadowing,
but I get the impression that the BIOS does this. The how do I go
about disabling shadowing and not reserving memory?
4 These machines were supposed to have a small partition with
diagnostics programs on it. I don't see anything but a Big-DOS
partition with FIPS and other HDD utilities. Can there be a parition
that such an utility cannot see?
5 Some utilities I have used show 256k video RAM, but there's supposed
to be 512k. The same utilities see 16450 UARTs on my serial port and a
16550A on the modem board, but MSD sees 8250s on the serial port.
How reliable is this stuff? Are there definitive h/w utilities in Linux?
Any information will be highly appreciated.
Thanks,
-bhaskar