Re: CD writing in future Linux (stirring up a hornets' nest)

[Joerg Schilling <schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de>]

Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:


> I notice that the first thing people suggest is to make things like 
> udev, hal and sysfs required instead of optional to do something as 
> simple as burn a CD. As I mentioned before, if the kernel provided a 
> list of devices then applications wouldn't break every time a new kernel 
> came out which needs a new this, and new that, and a few new other 
> support things.

This would make sense in case that a useful definition with a granted lifetime 
of at least 10 years would be implemented.


> The kernel could provide a list of devices by category. It doesn't have 

What if the kernel does not understand the cetegory?

Common oddities:

-	Mac OS X tries to distinct between CD/DVD writers and CD/DVD-ROM
	although there is only one device class.

-	Older CD-writers identified as WORM although a CD-R is not a WORM.

> to name them, run scripts, give descriptions, or paint them blue. Just a 
> list of all block devices, tapes, by major/minor and category (ie. 
> block, optical, floppy) would give the application layer a chance to do 
> it's own interpretation. HAL is great, but because it's not part of the 
> kernel it's also going to suffer from "tracking error" for some changes. 
> I find it easier to teach someone to use -scanbus than to explain how to 
> make rules for udev.

As this categorisation does not work, we need a way to find all devices 
that talk SCSI and let the application decicde what device is supported.


> Worth repeating: I find it easier to teach someone to use -scanbus than 
> to explain how to make rules for udev. HAL is the right answer, but *in* 
> the kernel, where it will track changes. Since -scanbus tells you a 
> device is a CDrecorder, or something else, *any user* is likely to be 
> able to tell it from DCD, CD-ROM, etc. Nice like of text for most devices...

So you seem to agree with me.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de     (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily