PNP - Non PNP?

[muskrat]

I don't know if the is posted in the right place. But I'm just wondering about the PNP, I read here and there that one should change the settings to Non PNP in the Bios when using and/or doing certian things in Linux.

I've done that to this box that just runs Linux, but I have some computors that I rent in an internet cafe that run Windoze ME, One of these I installed a trios switch and boot to Linux. I didn't change my bios, but I am fixing to do a setup for a linmodem that I bought at Sams Club. Part of the setup says change to bios to non PNP.

Now my question is, Can I change it back after setup and use it or will I always have to run it that way to use the modem? Because I don't believe Windoze will like it that way.

I guess my question really comes down to, exactly what is PNP? I know it stands for Plug and Play, but is it just used for instalation or is it some thing the OS depends on every time it boots? And in that question I'm including Windoze and Linux as OS.

[Davepet]

If I understand it correctly, a pnp operating system (win or Linux) handles setting up all the I/o, & IRQd etc on bootup, so that conflicts don't arise, when, for example, you install a new piece of HW in your machine.

Now, I'm a little less clear on this part, but I believe pnp os's don't need the bios to be set to pnp in order to do the job, & in fact, under certain cercumstances the bios pnp setting can actually conflict with what the OS tries to set up.

On the one machine I can recall looking at the bios setting for pnp, it setting was a bit confusing, as well.
It said something like:
Is a pnp OS installed? y n

I now believe that "yes" turns OFF the pnp in bios to let the OS handle pnp, but still unclear on that.

Hope someone else can add to this?

Dave