Re: [patch] My AMD IDE driver, v2.7

Jeff Garzik
2002-03-12T01:42:50Z

Linus Torvalds wrote:

>The only common factor here is the "synchronize with other requests" - I
>feel strongly (much more strongly than any parsing notion) that the raw
>requests have to be passed down the "struct request" and NOT be done the
>way they are traditionally done (ie completely outside the request stream,
>with no synchronization at all with any IO currently in progress).
>
agreed

>>I think "future new commands" is total FUD, the idea that some new command
>>would come along and be so instantly popular, useful and incompatible that
>>all Linux boxes would require it before the next kernel or driver update
>>is silly at best, and I'm working hard to keep this on a civil plane.
>>
>
>It has nothing to do with "new" commands, and everything to do with
>"random vendor-specific commands and the vendor-specific tools". Commands
>that simply should _never_ be parsed in the kernel, because we do not want
>to care about 10 different vendors 10 different revisions of their
>firmware having 10 different small random special commands for that
>particular drive.
>
>In particular, a user that upgrades his hardware should never _ever_ have
>to upgrade his kernel just because some random disk diagnostic tool needs
>support for a disk that is new and has new diagnostics.
>
Are such random vendor-specific commands really that common?

Linus, would it be acceptable to you to include an -optional- filter for
ATA commands? There is definitely a segment of users that would like to
firewall their devices, and I think (as crazy as it may sound) that
notion is a valid one.

Jeff