Re: Kernel Summit request for Discussion of future of ATA (libata) and IDE

[Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>]

James Bottomley wrote:
> Right at the moment, we have two separate subsystems for running IDE
> type devices:  driver/ide and drivers/ata.  The claim I've seen is that
> drivers/ata can do everything drivers/ide can do plus it does sata.  I
> also note that no major distribution seems to enable anything in
> drivers/ide anymore, so given this is it time to deprecate drivers/ide?
> 
> A counter argument to the above is that not all drivers (particularly
> the older ones where hw is scarce) are converted to drivers/ata, so
> drivers/ide seems to be needed for some legacy systems (in which case it
> can be deprecated but not removed).  I've also noted that some embedded
> distributions seem to be using drivers/ide, but I'm not really sure
> whether this is inertia or some overriding need.
> 
> The proposal is to discuss the future of these two subsystems and arrive
> at a consensus what's happening to each going forwards.

I'm not in any rush to change the status quo as I see it: don't remove 
drivers/ide but encourage new drivers to be under libata.

I am a bit disappointed at all the drivers/ide churn.  I had hoped it 
would sit around and be a stable alternative, a fallback to libata.

	Jeff