Re: [PATCHSET pata-2.6] ide: rq->buffer, data, special and misc cleanups

[Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>]

FUJITA Tomonori wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:54:38 -0400
> Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org> wrote:
> 
>> FUJITA Tomonori wrote:
>>> On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:04:39 +0300
>>> Boaz Harrosh <bharrosh@panasas.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> I
>>>>> just don't think bvec should be used outside of block/fs interface.
>>>>> As I wrote before, non-FS users have no reason to worry about bio.
>>>>> All it should think about is the requst it needs to issue and the
>>>>> memory area it's gonna use as in/out buffers.  bio just doesn't have a
>>>>> place there.
>>>>>
>>>> I don't understand what happens to all the people that start to work on the block
>>>> layer, they start getting defensive about bio being private to the request
>>>> level. But the Genie is out of the bag already (I know cats and bottles).
>>>> bio is already heavily used above the block layer from directly inside filesystems
>>>> to all kind of raid engines, DM MD managers, multi paths, integrity information ...
>>>>
>>>> Because bio is exactly that Ideal page carrier you are talking about.
>>> Wrong. multi path doesn't use bio. md accesses to the bio internal
>>> (it's not nice) and has the own way to carry pages. dm has the own
>>> mechanism on the top of bio. And bio doesn't work nicely for file
>>> systems such as btrfs, which handle multiple devices.
>>>
>>> Please stop your wrong argument 'bio is the ideal page carrier'.
>> What is the multi-device problem with bio?
> 
> Well, if it works nicely, I guess that we don't have something like
> drivers/dm/{dm-bio-record.h, dm-bio-list.h}, btrfs_multi_bio struct,
> or md's own page carrier?

It was an honest question.  I am seeking information, not denying your 
argument.

What, specifically, is this multi-device problem with bio, please?

	Jeff