3.1 Do you have a PnP operating system?
Regardless of how you answer this to the BIOS, the PnP BIOS will PnP-configure the hard-drive, floppy, video card, and keyboard to make the system bootable as well as configure the LPC bus (if you have one). If you said no PnP OS then the BIOS should configure everything.
How should you answer this question to your BIOS? If you have at at least the 2.4 kernel you could answer it either way and Linux will usually work fine. Even if you have have Windows 2000 or XP on the same PC, it will usually work OK either way. This is because both Windows and Linux are supposedly PnP OS's and if the OS is PnP it should be able to also handle the case where the BIOS has configured everything (if you said it wasn't PnP). But I still suggest saying that it's not a PnP OS unless there is a known reason to say otherwise.
Linux prior to the 2.4 kernel
It's not often clear whether to say yes or no. If isapnp was used by Linux, then Linux does the configuring and it was claimed that it's best to say it's a PnP OS. Why isapnp would have trouble when presented with devices already configured by the BIOS isn't clear, but such trouble sometimes happened and was fixed by stopping the BIOS from configuring (saying yes, it's a PnP OS). There were a few cases where saying no fixed a problem. So if isapnp is doing it's job OK, you should probably say it's PnP. If isapnp isn't used, no is usually best. The Linux device drivers for PCI devices should configure PCI devices OK. But for the case of PCI devices driven by non-PCI drivers, then you may say it's not PnP to get the BIOS to configure them.
Windows 2000 and XP
If you also run these Windows OS's on the same PC, you should say that you don't have a PnP OS. That's what MS suggests you do. Perhaps MS hopes that the BIOS will do a better job at configuring than Windows will. That makes sense because the BIOS should be designed for the particular idiosyncrasies of the motherboard, especially today when many devices are built into the motherboard. PnP OS = no should also be OK for Linux kernels 2.4 and higher. But for Linux kernel prior to 2.4, it's not clear which is best. (see the above subsection). So if you have problems with Linux you might try saying you have a PnP OS to satisfy Linux but this is going against what MS suggest (but will probably work OK anyway).
When the BIOS configures a device different from what Windows has in it's registry, Windows will tell you that it's finding new hardware. What it's really doing is finding old hardware that has been configured differently so it thinks it's new hardware. At any rate, it records the configuration that the BIOS has used in its registry and the device should work OK from now on.
MS Windows 95, 98 (and Me ?)
For Windows9x, MS suggest that you tell the BIOS that you have a PnP OS (the exact opposite of the case for Windows 2000 and XP). This should also be OK for Linux if you have kernel 2.4 or later. But if you have a Linux kernel prior to 2.4 then it's best for Linux to say that it's not a PnP OS. One way to resolve this dilemma is to set it up for the OS you use more frequently. Then when you boot the other OS, manually go into the BIOS and change the setting. This is a lot of bother but it's feasible if you almost never use one the OS's. Otherwise there are better ways to resolved this dilemma.
The second way to resolve this dilemma is to get Linux to resource-configure everything. See Linux prior to the 2.4 kernel. Then you tell the BIOS it's a PnP OS.
The third way to resolve this dilemma is to tell the BIOS it's not a PnP OS. This is going against what MS says you should do, but it's possible to get MS Windows9x to work OK if you understand what to do (and why). If you tell the BIOS it's not a PnP OS, shouldn't MS Windows detect how the BIOS has configured things and change it if it doesn't like what the BIOS has done? It should, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work this way.
What Windows9x seems to do when it
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