Re: Restoring HDIO_GETGEO semantics for 2.6 (was: Re: [RFC] Restoring HDIO_GETGEO semantics)

Steffen Winterfeldt
2004-07-05T13:10:44Z

On Mon, 5 Jul 2004, Szakacsits Szabolcs wrote:

> On Sat, 3 Jul 2004, Andries Brouwer wrote:
> >
> > But it is true, returning 0 in all other fields would have made
> > it more clear that there is no attempt to return the BIOS geometry.
> > It might be a good idea to do that.
>
> I fail to see how that would solve _now_ the _current_ serious problem
> with HDIO_GETGEO.

It wouldn't, the damage has been done. I just wish HDIO_GETGEO had been
removed rather than changed.

> 1) 2.6 kernels made very visible that the widely used Parted, libparted,
> etc are severely broken. They should be FIXED. Off-topic on linux-kernel.

It's not *severly* broken. All partitioning tools use some kind of
heuristics and it's just a minor variation compared to, say, fdisk that
makes parted fail.

> Considering all the above points, it seems logical from practical point
> of view, that the restoration of the old HDIO_GETGEO functionality (or
> something that's very close to its behaviour) _temporarily_ for 2.6
> kernels makes sense.

It's too late. Rather than updating the kernel you could as well update your
favorite partitioning tool.

Changing the semantics of HDIO_GETGEO either way in the (supposedly) stable
2.6.x series it IMHO not a good idea.

Steffen