Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 23:56:22 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <B.Zolnierkiewicz@elka.pw.edu.pl>
To: Paul Bristow <paul@paulbristow.net>
cc: Martin Dalecki <dalecki@evision-ventures.com>,
       Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2.5.22] simple ide-tape.c and ide-floppy.c cleanup
In-Reply-To: <3D29F70D.6020001@paulbristow.net>
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On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Paul Bristow wrote:

> OK.  I kept quiet while the IDE re-write went on so that when it was
> over I could fix up ide-floppy and start adding some of the requested
> features that were only really possible with the taskfile capabilities.
>  But I have to jump in with the latest statements from Martin...

Great.

> Martin Dalecki wrote:
>
> >U?ytkownik Eduard Bloch napisa?:
> >
> >>Why not another way round? Just make the ide-scsi driver be prefered,
> >>and hack ide-scsi a bit to simulate the cdrom and adv.floppy devices
> >>that are expected as /dev/hd* by some user's configuration?
> >
> >This is the intention.

Bad intentions?

> >
> Since when?  I thought Jens was in the process of getting rid of the
> ide-scsi kludge with his moves to support cd/dvd writing directly in
> ide-cd?

We should have generic packet command interface ATAPI/SCSI,
ide-cd and sr should care only about ATA(PI)/SCSI specifics.
Of course if this is possible...

> >>to be honest - why keep ide-[cd,floppy,tape] when they can be almost
> >>completely replaced with ide-scsi? I know about only few cdrom devices
> >>that are broken (== not ATAPI compliant) but can be used with
> >>workarounds in the current ide-cd driver. OTOH many users do already
> >>need ide-scsi to access cd recorders and similar hardware, so they would
> >>benefit much more from having ide-scsi as default than few users of
> >>broken "atapi" drives.
> >>
> >>
> OK.  I would prefer though to take Linus's comment on board about
> unifying the removeable media  interfaces. Be they IDE, SCSI, Firewire,
> USB, whatever.  Let's try to make it something comprehensible for
> "normal humans", and don't say "let config scripts sort it out - I deal
> with many user help requests from broken configs.
>
> Please don't forget that
>   a) some of the broken ide devices will still need fixes even if
> handled via ide-scsi (and yes, devices on the market today are still
> broken today)
>   b) some features still need IDE commands (not ATAPI) which I hoped we
> would have done via taskfile - I guess this is tricky via ide-scsi
>   c) getting ide-scsi working for PCMCIA devices is an absolute f*****g
> nightmare - for this reason alone I would keep ide-floppy
>   d) many of these devices (LS120/LS240/Zip 100/250 etc) can and need to
> boot.  I don't even know how to start doing this under ide-scsi in it's
> present form.
>
> The current system may be ugly, but if we have to break it in the name
> of progress we have at least to make the new, improved version work as
> well (and hopefully better) than the old one.

Fully agreed.

> >>Other operating systems did switch to constitent (scsi-based) way of
> >>accessing all kinds of removable media drivers. Why does Linux have to
> >>keep a kludge, written years ago without having a good concept?
> If we can address all these issues I will be extremely happy to helping
> create a sensible removeable media subsystem.
>
> --
>
> Paul
>
> Linux ide-floppy maintainer
> Email:	paul@paulbristow.net
> Web:	http://paulbristow.net
> ICQ:	11965223

Greets
--
Bartlomiej

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