The A1 "hardware issues" derives from the MAI Articia S Northbridge. But there seems to be split opinions whether the "issues" are good or bad.
Some people thinks that it's an unknown/undocumented *feature* of the Northbridge hardware, and that it's the LinuxPPC operating system that is problematic and unstable, and that is the explanation to why the OS crashes and files gets corrupted.
Other people thinks that it's a bug in the Northbridge hardware and has either dropped development of the boards based on this chip and/or developed hardware patches (in plural) for it. The LinuxPPC operating system works fine with these patches, and even better when the Articia northbridge is completely left out of the picture in favour of another one.
Some people has also observed that even the
MAI data-sheets about the Articia S no longer mentions DMA support, nor did the Article about MAI products in
"IBM PowerPc News" (compare the different chips in the "Miscellaneous" row of the table, two has DMA, one has not (guess which one)). So to some people it seems obvious that not even the manufacturer themselves is prepared to sell the Articia northbridge used in the A1 as DMA capable anymore. You asked: "Hi - what is the deal with the DMA problem in the AmigaOne hardware"? The answer would be: There is none! No DMA that is! :lol: :-P At least if you should believe the manufacturers themselves ...
The Articia S has a lot of other issues too; it is very picky when it comes to peripheral hardware (and the way you connect them), such as memory, CD-ROM drives, etc. It also uses a kind of memory that is getting quite old, expensive, rare and hard to get. Only to mention a few things ...
