Theodore, May I ask for a "name" field in your PCI-table? Then we can
say something like "Detected an xxxx card". That make supporting such
a card a lot easier: People get reassured that their card got
detected.
The reason why I haven't done this is because I don't want to bloat the
kernel with overly large tables; if past history is any guide, I have no
doubt that the number of PCI serial boards will be *large*.
If we are going to be doing this, we should use the same mechanism of
mapping vendor/device id's to (string) names that is used in
drivers/pci/oldproc.c. But some poeple have wanted to phase this out
entirely, although I think I remember a comment from Linus that he
thinks it might be good for that functionality to stay in the kernel.
So we should settle the larger-scale issue of should the kernel take up
in-kernel memory that maps PCI id's to names in general first, IMHO.
We can certainly add a message saying that "PCI serial card 1415:9501
detected". Would that solve your issue.
The Speed4 card is equipped with line drivers capable of 115k2, not
more. It would be best to disable (by default) the "clock multiplier
modes" of the 16PCI954/16C950. Or at least warn that this exceeds
specs for the card. (I'm pretty sure that you won't blow anything up,
as the Xfree team is afraid about....)
What happens when you exceeds the specs for the card? Is it like what
happens when you overclock a Celeron? (i.e., nothing bad happens most
of the time. :-) I'll note that most people exceed the original RS-232
standard's cable length specifications at the higher baud rates, and
usually nothing bad happens. Part of this is because cables are higher
quality than the original RS-232 specification surmised, and part of it
was the standard was fairly conservative.
If there's no danger to the hardware, my first thought is that it's not
worth the complexity to prevent it from happening, since then you'll
need to add an override mechanism, and that adds even more
complexity....
- Ted
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