Re: [PATCH] 2.5.8 IDE 36

Martin Dalecki
2002-04-17T08:38:42Z

Alan Cox wrote:
>>Doing it with a loopback like interface at a higher level is the much
>>saner operation - I understand why Martin removed the byteswap support,
>>and agree with it 100%. It just didn't make any sense from a driver
>>standpoint.
>
>
> We need to support partitioning on loopback devices in that case.
>
>
>>The only reason byteswapping exists is a rather historical one: Linux did
>>the wrong thing for "insw/outsw" on big-endian architectures at one point
>>(it byteswapped the data).
>
>
> A small number of other setups people wired the IDE the quick and easy
> way and their native format is indeed ass backwards - some M68K disks and
> the Tivo are examples of that. Interworking requires byteswapping and the
> ability to handle byteswapped partition tables.

I said it already multiple times Alan - please note that the byte-swapping code
for *physically* crosswired systems is *still there*. OK?