Re: [PATCH] cdrom access patch

[Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>]

On Fri, 2008-03-14 at 13:33 +0800, Bean wrote:

> thanks a lot for your testing. if nobody objects, i would like to
> commit it soon.

It would be great if you posted the ChangeLog entry and explained the
reason for the patch.  I checked the thread, but I don't see it.

Is it just going to affect access to the CD in the "no emulation" mode?
Or maybe you are trying to make CD-ROM accessible if booting from the
hard drive or another medium?

What is the problem you are trying to solve?  And what's wrong with the
(cd0) name?  I think it's more descriptive, and I don't care much if
some other device like LS-120 is going to get such name.

As for passing the boot driver data to multiboot kernels, I don't think
it's useful to pass data about emulated drives.  Besides, it should be
easy to keep the BIOS number in memory for every drive, even if it's
called (cd0).

Compare how Linux is changing from naming CD-ROMs by the bus location
(/dev/hdc, /dev/hdd) to naming by functionality with sequential numbers
(/dev/scd0, /dev/scd1).  Things like bus location should be transparent
to the user.

Better yet, all partitions should be identified by a unique ID, which is
what serious distros should be doing.  Still, (cd0) is more reliable and
descriptive than (hd96) for casual use.

Please note that I'm not objecting against the patch, I'm just asking
for a better explanation to understand what the patch does and why.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin