Re: [PATCH] libata/pata_it821x: Improve handling of poorly compatible emulations

[Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>]

Alan Cox wrote:
> Some it821x RAID firmwares return 0 for the err return off both devices.
> A similar issue occurs with the slave returning 0 not 1 if you plug a
> gigabyte sata ramdisk into a controller that fakes two SATA ports as
> master/slave on an SFF channel.
> 
> The patch does the following
> 
> - Allow the 'failed diagnostics' case on both master and slave
> - Move the HORKAGE_DIAGNOSTIC check after ->dev_config
> 
> This second change also allows IT821x to fix up a problem where we report
> drive diagnostic failures when in fact the drive is fine but the
> microcontroller firmware doesn't appear to get it right. IT821x clears
> the flag again to avoid giving the user bogus warnings about their disk.
> 
> The other IT821x change is a bit ugly, we slightly abuse the cable type
> hook to fiddle with the identify data for the devices. We could add a new
> hook for this but as we have only one offender and no more seeming likely
> it seems better to keep libata-core clean.
> 
> Please let this sit in -mm briefly, just in case the relaxed checking
> breaks some other emulated interface.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Alan Cox <alan@redhat.com>

Two questions:

1) should I queue for 2.6.24-rc?

2) why is ->dev_config() insufficient?