From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Brian King Subject: Re: [PATCH] IBM Power RAID driver (ipr) 2.0.6 Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 13:24:38 -0500 Sender: linux-scsi-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <4097DFE6.8080002@us.ibm.com> References: <4097D863.8040505@us.ibm.com> <20040504185618.A26003@infradead.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from e1.ny.us.ibm.com ([32.97.182.101]:3230 "EHLO e1.ny.us.ibm.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264579AbUEDSYy (ORCPT ); Tue, 4 May 2004 14:24:54 -0400 List-Id: linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org To: Christoph Hellwig Cc: James.Bottomley@steeleye.com, linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org Christoph Hellwig wrote: > On Tue, May 04, 2004 at 12:52:35PM -0500, Brian King wrote: > >>James, >> >>Here is the latest version of the LLD for the IBM Power RAID family of >>adapters. This includes several IBM iSeries and pSeries SCSI adapters. >>Please apply. > > > BTW, any plans to add support for the older iSeries models supported by > the binary only ibmsis driver? No. The older models have several "issues" with them. First of all, while the firmware interface has similarities, there are enough differences to make writing a driver to support both somewhat ugly. Yes, ibmsis did both, but it was also a pretty bulky driver. Secondly, the way RAID is done on the legacy adapters is completely different. It is done how OS/400 needs it done, which means data striping is not done in the adapter, but rather by the system, as each device is exposed to the system. Thirdly, the adapters based on the Chukar chip have lots of "features" with them. To name a few, BIST does not work. The only way to reset the card is to assert PCI reset. PCI config space can come up in either big endian or little endian mode, which requires creative programming to detect and fixup. Not supporting the legacy adapters resulted in a *much* cleaner OSS driver. ibmsis will continue to be supported for bug fixes, etc. for the older adapters, but all new adapters will be supported only by ipr. -Brian -- Brian King eServer Storage I/O IBM Linux Technology Center