Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751276AbWAZAhU (ORCPT ); Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:37:20 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751277AbWAZAhT (ORCPT ); Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:37:19 -0500 Received: from 41-052.adsl.zetnet.co.uk ([194.247.41.52]:57870 "EHLO mail.esperi.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751276AbWAZAhR (ORCPT ); Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:37:17 -0500 To: Matthias Andree Cc: Jens Axboe , grundig@teleline.es, Joerg Schilling , jengelh@linux01.gwdg.de, rlrevell@joe-job.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, acahalan@gmail.com Subject: Re: CD writing in future Linux (stirring up a hornets' nest) References: <787b0d920601241923k5cde2bfcs75b89360b8313b5b@mail.gmail.com> <20060125144543.GY4212@suse.de> <20060125153057.GG4212@suse.de> <43D7AF56.nailDFJ882IWI@burner> <20060125181847.b8ca4ceb.grundig@teleline.es> <20060125173127.GR4212@suse.de> <43D7C1DF.1070606@gmx.de> From: Nix X-Emacs: (setq software-quality (/ 1 number-of-authors)) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:36:39 +0000 In-Reply-To: <43D7C1DF.1070606@gmx.de> (Matthias Andree's message of "25 Jan 2006 18:23:16 -0000") Message-ID: <878xt3rfjc.fsf@amaterasu.srvr.nix> User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) XEmacs/21.4 (Corporate Culture, linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1890 Lines: 38 On 25 Jan 2006, Matthias Andree prattled cheerily: > Jens Axboe wrote: > >> In fact it would be a _lot_ easier to just scan sysfs and do an inquiry >> on potentially useful devices. > > Hm. sysfs, procfs, udev, hotplug, netlink (for IPv6) - this all looks rather > complicated and non-portable. I understand that applications that can just > open every device and send SCSI INQUIRY might want to do that on Linux, too. Applications (already) do this by asking HAL, which can be informed of new devices in a variety of ways: the up-and-coming one is for the kernel to notify udevd, following which a udev rule sends a dbus message to HAL. Everything from the dbus message on up is cross-OS portable. -scanbus is *totally* unnecessary. (Furthermore, it fails to work in a quite laughable fashion in the presence of hotpluggable storage media. udev handles giving hotpluggable storage media consistent device names with extreme ease, and tells HAL about them so that users see the new devices appear even if they don't have a clue that /dev even exists. The change that J. Random Nontechnical User will ever run `cdrecord -scanbus' is *nil*, and applications don't run it either because they can't judge between all the devices that are listed to pick the one which is a CD recorder (consider the consequences should they guess wrong!). Instead, they invariably ask for a device name, or, in more recent versions get the info from HAL. HAL knows if something is a CD recorder because its backend, e.g. udev, told it.) -- `Everyone has skeletons in the closet. The US has the skeletons driving living folks into the closet.' --- Rebecca Ore - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/