Imagine that you could toggle a switch somewhere and then the kernel
goes into paranoid mode, checking everything three times, stealing all
the idle CPU cycles to tromp up and down the hardware seeking hardware
faults.
The one (and only) thing I liked about ye olde early versions of DOS
was you could tell the OS to move over and then stomp on the hardware
'til it squealed.
Every FAQ says that linux stomps on the hardware harder than anything
else. True. The only bitch is when the hardware squeals, Linux can't
tell me which blasted bit went wrong.
I think this will have to be a kernel not user land thing because :-
a) Linux kernel stresses the hardware in manners hard to emulate in
ordinary diagnostic software.
b) User land software is far removed from the metal, so if things
do go wrong, how do you tell which piece of scrap was
responsible?
c) User land can't prescribe to the kernel where to put its
feet. ('cuse me Mr. kernel sir, I want to check that bit of memory
under your chair...)
And dammit, there is something in my machine that is on very rare
occassions dropping literally a single bit.
(eg. gcc bitched about syntax error in <iostream.h>, checked with
"less" and sure enough there was a single ';' (octal 073) converted to
a '3' (octal 063). I flushed the buffers by cat'ting lots of stuff to
/dev/null and looked again... the ';' was back.)
John Carter EMail: ece@dwaf-hri.pwv.gov.za
Telephone : 27-12-808-0374x194 Fax:- 27-12-808-0338
<http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/5947> or <http://iwqs.pwv.gov.za>
There is ever only one enemy - And that is the military.
It matters not on which side they purport to be.
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