>From netnews.comp.os.linux: 23-Aug-92 16550A  gt0449a@prism.gatech.EDU
(Rob Coleman) (1124)

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>Does anyone else have problems with Linux not correctly "shutting down"
>the 16550?  Ever since the kernel has supported a 16550, I have had to
>hard reset the computer after running linux, or it seems that the
>computer "forgets" that the port that contains the 16550, exists.  When I
>soft reboot from linux (after doing a shutdown), the CMOS screen shows
>one less serial port (in my case, None), and programs such as OS/2
>refuse to install the COM drivers because they don't see the serial
>port.  (I have no term program running under Linux at the time)

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>I had this problem with beta versions OS/2 early on where it would
>exhibit the same behavior (and still will if I reboot OS/2 while
>running a term program), but a normal shutdown (in the final release of
>OS/2) "correctly closes" the port (ie. the computer is aware of the
>ports existence when the CMOS screen comes up).

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>Is there code that needs to be added to Shutdown that would relinquish
>control of the port?

Actually something like that should probably be in the kernel reboot
code that is run when the reboot system call is executed. There are a
few problems with rebooting remaining, it seems. Some of them might be
due to the computer BIOS, and some due to Linux. Hopefully a patch to
the Linux reboot code will fix any Linux bugs or work around any BIOS
bugs.

By the way, I have had no trouble with reboot usually. My computer had a
CMOS amnesia attack (forgot the *WHOLE* setup), but I don't know if
Linux did that. It happened only once.