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

Bill Davidsen
2002-03-12T16:38:18Z

On Mon, 11 Mar 2002, Erik Andersen wrote:

> On Mon Mar 11, 2002 at 10:10:36PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > 1) There should be a raw device command interface (not ATA or SCSI specific)
>
> Hmm. If such a generic low-level raw device layer were to be
> implemented (presumably as the foundation for the block layer), I
> expect the interface would be somthing like the cdrom layer, and
> would abstract out all the normal things that raw mass-storage
> devices can do.
>
> But the minute such a layer is in place, people will begin going
> straight to the sub-low-level raw device layers so they can use
> all the exciting new extended features of their XP370000 quantum
> storage array which needs the special frob-electrons command to
> make it work...

Given that this has not happened with sg, nor with people using the
sg+ide-scsi, I think you would have to provide a good reason why this
would happen. The most likely path would be a separate driver or enhanced
IDE driver patch. User programs generally do read, write and seek, not
ioctl level hacking.

--
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
CTO, TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979.