----- Original Message ----- > 1- is enabling/disabling interrupts the same as masking/unmasking > interrupts? and what is the differences in case not ? Yes. The definitions are basically the same. A non-maskable interrupt is one that cannot be disabled (disabled being the kernel term). first, thanks to all for help second, i've found this written in the book Each IRQ line can be selectively disabled. Thus, the PIC can be programmed to disable IRQs. That is, the PIC can be told to stop issuing interrupts that refer to a given IRQ line Selective enabling/disabling of IRQs is not the same as global masking/unmasking of maskable interrupts. When the IF flag of the eflags register is clear, each maskable interrupt issued by the PIC is temporarily ignored by the CPU so the disables interrupts are not sent at all while the masked interrupts are sent but ignored by the CPU .. is this right ? in case it's right i've jumped to this conclusion : disabled interrupts are not lost cause they aren't send at all .. they are queued, but masked interrupts are lost cause they are sent but ignored by the CPU correct me please .. thanks MHD -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
