Re: spelling of disc (disk) in /devfs

Thomas Dodd
2001-02-08T23:32:28Z

Peter Samuelson wrote:
>
> [Jeremy M. Dolan]
> > Disk is spelled 'disk' except for Compact Disc and Digital Versatile
> > Disc. If it wasn't 3:30 in the morning, a patch would be attached.
>
> It wouldn't do any good. Many months ago, Ted Ts'o pleaded with
> Richard Gooch (devfs author, from Australia) to switch to the American
> spelling of the word, for consistency with the rest of the kernel, and
> nothing came of it. At this point you may as well consider
> '/dev/discs' an "interface set in stone". (Come on, do *you* want to
> explain to thousands of people why their /etc/fstab suddenly broke?)

Better still, follow the lead from other Solaris and HP-UX.

/dev/dsk/* block access for hard drives
/dev/rdsk/* char access for hard drives
/dev/diskette block access for floppy drives
/dev/rdiskette char access for floppy drives
/dev/rscsi/* char access for raw scsi (replace /dev/sg* )

Since linux currently doesn't have char access to drives,
rdsk/rdiskette would be ignored untill it is implemented
and needed.

My $0.02

-Thomas