Re: [2.6 patch] select ATA_SFF

[Mark Lord <liml@rtr.ca>]

Sergei Shtylyov wrote:
> Alan Cox wrote:
> 
>>> Sergei Shtylyov wrote:
> 
>>>>>>   Jeff, Tejun, what "sff" in the file name actually means? Isn't 
>>>>>> it strange that the drivers lacking DMA support or not really 
>>>>>> compliant with SFF-8038i have to link with this file?
> 
>>>>> Maybe it should be libata-tf and libata-bmdma, but sff (sans bmdma)
>>>>> and bmdma is acceptable, hopefully, right?
> 
>>>>   What's sff sans bmdma?
> 
>>> Supposed to be TF interface.  IIRC, the SFF term was first from Alan 
>>> although it's entirely possible that I misunderstood it and used it 
>>> in the wrong way.  Alan, can you please clear up the confusion?
> 
>> The SFF/Intel spec is for PCI IDE (BMDMA or otherwise), so it covers and
>> defines all the common bits of the IDE interface on PCI (and in defining
>> the legacy interface conveniently documents the extended ST-412 interface
>> used by ATA and "pre-ATA" IDE/EIDE controllers).
> 
>    If you mean SFF-8038i (which can indeed be named "SFF/Intel"), it
> documents *only* BMDMA.  If you mean something else, please be more 
> precise.
..

The "Intel PCI IDE Controller Specification Revision 1.0 3/4/94" doesn't mention
bmdma at all, but does document the taskfile register addresses.
It defers to ATA-1 for actual taskfile descriptions/functionality, though.

There's nothing particularly bad about the current naming we use, though.

Cheers