Re: Re+: SATA hard drive no longer comes up as /dev/sda on 2.6.22 with Intel ICH6M

[Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <bzolnier@gmail.com>]

Hi,

On Thursday 26 July 2007, Tejun Heo wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> P.C.Chan wrote:
> > The last straw which breaks the SATA support is
> > "CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC=y".   Please see enclosed config files.
> > 
> > The description being:
> > 
> > *generic/default IDE chipset support (IDE_GENERIC)
> > 
> > If unsure, say Y.*
> > 
> > The linux distributions would have a hard time in preparing a kernel for
> > general use,  when CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC and libata are somewhat mutally
> > exclusive for Intel chipset.
> 
> Distros usually know better and don't build in the generic driver.  It's
> built as a module and used only as the last resort.
> 
> > I guess it should at least say:
> > 
> > *If unsure, say N.*
> > 
> > It did no harm prior to 2.6.22 though.
> 
> That didn't to any harm probably because ATA quirk code reserved the
> area for libata during PCI initialization, so the generic driver
> couldn't grab the port before libata.  Now that the quirk is gone, the
> generic driver grabs the first IDE channel before libata and you don't
> have dma for your drive.
> 
> cc'ing Bartlomiej.  Bartlomiej, I think it would be better not to
> default to Y for CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC.  For most cases, it just causes
> misconfiguration and confusion these days.

Fully agreed, care to submit a patch?

Thanks,
Bart