From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Tejun Heo Subject: Re: [RFC] Separating out libata out of SCSI (finally) Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:50:38 +0900 Message-ID: <485C424E.1060208@kernel.org> References: <485B2CC6.6070201@kernel.org> <1213993737.3443.35.camel@localhost.localdomain> <485C31FE.8050408@garzik.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from hera.kernel.org ([140.211.167.34]:34745 "EHLO hera.kernel.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752397AbYFTXvQ (ORCPT ); Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:51:16 -0400 In-Reply-To: <485C31FE.8050408@garzik.org> Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Jeff Garzik Cc: James Bottomley , IDE/ATA development list , linux-scsi , brking@linux.vnet.ibm.com, Mark Lord , Alan Cox , Jens Axboe Jeff Garzik wrote: > 1) Make SCSI block devices themselves an allocate-able resource (I think > that's what you meant by "placed into it's own module so both sd and a > ULD ata driver could use it"?) > > 2) Ensure that any ata_disk ULD would support the same partition limits > and ioctl set, enough to ensure binary compatibility. > > Because that's the real need -- maintaining binary compatibility with > SCSI block devices, so major/minor, ioctl supported set, partition > limits, and other relevant details need to remain unchanged. > > The underlying software we're of course free to change... I'm taking this approach. I think it's better than introducing a new block device while keeping the old one as that causes numerous userland problems including dup devices (if they're gonna exist side-by-side) and eventual need for conversion && breakage of old userland on newer kernels. Thanks. -- tejun