2. Setting up the hardware

2.1. Plug and Play

Plug and Play is basically one thing: knowing where, and how to talk to the device. It is not directly related to autodetecting new hardware.

If your hardware is plug-and-play, as is the case with most modern stuff ( all PCI and AGP devices, and a few of the last ISA boards), you may jump directly to the section about software configuration.

2.2. non-Plug-and-Play

Aaaahh. OK. This is for people having some really old hardware.

First thing to do:

Before even plugging in your board: let's check for free IRQ, I/O and DMA channels. Those are the channels that are used to talk to any and each piece of hardware.

cat /proc/interrupts

will list all used IRQ channels

cat /proc/ioports

will list all used I/O ports

I don't know how to list used DMA channels.

cat /proc/dma

shows a ridiculously short list. I have no idea.

Once done, take a look at your board, and the manual that comes with it. There should be jumpers (small removable plastic+metal parts) that you can plug into different places that allow you to physically change the IRQ, DMA, IO port, etc...

Use them to set your device's IRQ DMA and IO port to an unused value.