Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Thu, 20 Dec 2001 02:33:10 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Thu, 20 Dec 2001 02:33:01 -0500 Received: from white.pocketinet.com ([12.17.167.5]:15585 "EHLO white.pocketinet.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Thu, 20 Dec 2001 02:32:49 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Nicholas Knight Reply-To: nknight@pocketinet.com To: Willem Riede , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [RFC] Tape driver rationalization for Linux 2.5? Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 23:24:05 -0800 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.1] In-Reply-To: <20011219172929.A23227@linnie.riede.org> In-Reply-To: <20011219172929.A23227@linnie.riede.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 20 Dec 2001 07:31:09.0032 (UTC) FILETIME=[4AD5FE80:01C18928] Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wednesday 19 December 2001 02:29 pm, Willem Riede wrote: > Folks, > > Being the maintainer of the driver for Onstream tape drives (osst) > and wanting to stay abreast with the kernel evolution, I've been > reading up on some of the changes that are being made to the scsi > sub-system in the 2.5.x kernel series, and that has got me > thinking... > > I've never really understood why there are separate high level > drivers for tape drives -- or cdroms for that matter (other than "it > just happened that way"). > > Also, I find the fact that the user needs to tell the kernel at boot > time whether (s)he is going to use ide-scsi or not awkward. You > should be able to point any appropriate driver to a device by loading > the corresponding module (and maybe tell the module specifically not > to touch some compatible device, but preferably just gracefully > shared and locked (think sg)). > > I'm not alone here, quoting Linus from the Scheduler thread: > 'And even more important than performance is being able to read > and write to CD-RW disks without having to know about things like > "ide-scsi" etc, and do it sanely over different bus architectures > etc.' Am I alone in knowing that, at least as of 2.4.9 (the earliest I'm really sure I used it on) through 2.4.16, you DON'T need any weird boot-time switches? Simply DO NOT compile in the IDE CD-ROM drive, compile in SCSI CD-ROM and SCSI Generic support, and voila, fully functional ATAPI CD writer this even works on my IDE DVD drive to read from em, I just use /dev/scd# I am using NO boot time flags, including ide-scsi - 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/