Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1030513AbXAaS2H (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:28:07 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1030511AbXAaS2H (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:28:07 -0500 Received: from tmailer.gwdg.de ([134.76.10.23]:49768 "EHLO tmailer.gwdg.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030513AbXAaS2F (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:28:05 -0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:24:54 +0100 (MET) From: Jan Engelhardt To: Adrian Bunk cc: Andi Kleen , Greg KH , Roland Dreier , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Rewriting floppy.c was Re: Free Linux Driver Development! In-Reply-To: <20070131172410.GV3754@stusta.de> Message-ID: References: <20070130012904.GA9617@kroah.com> <20070130191020.GF20642@kroah.com> <20070131011340.GP3754@stusta.de> <20070131012428.GA31759@kroah.com> <20070131172410.GV3754@stusta.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Spam-Report: Content analysis: 0.0 points, 6.0 required _SUMMARY_ Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1750 Lines: 46 On Jan 31 2007 18:24, Adrian Bunk wrote: >On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 11:08:14AM +0100, Andi Kleen wrote: >> Greg KH writes: >> > >> > What? Throw a fresh-faced newbie instantly into the tar-pit of despair >> > that floppy.c is? Do you want everyone just to run screaming from >> > kernel development never to be seen again? >> >> Doing a from-scratch rewrite of floppy.c only supporting new >> hardware and no obscure formats ("newfloppy.c") would be an excellent >> newbie project imho. This means for someone who is still pretty >> new, but wants to get their fingers wet with more complicated changes. >> >> Then over time (old-)floppy.c could be phased out. >>... > >Considering how widespread floppies are, these two sentences are >contradictions. > >If the goal is to phase out the old floppy driver, a new driver will >have to gain support for more or less all hardware the old driver >supports... How much different hardware does the (old)floppy.c do? I imagine that today, where floppies phase out, there will be, in descending order: * USB floppy drives (atm handled by sd.c, could be better to have sf.c) * FDCs on mainboards * 1.44M drives * 1.2M drives Even a working 2.88M, as cool as it sounds, never landed in my hands ever since I've been into computing. Perhaps the oldest, smallest disk I once had was a 360K 5.25", but the B floppy drive to read it was already multi-compliant that read up to 1.2M disks. Jan -- ft: http://freshmeat.net/p/chaostables/ - 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/