Robert Heller writes:
> Bill Freeman <f@ke1g.mv.com>,
...
> BF> 8. I've pretty much decided that this is easy enough that I'm
> BF> not going to sign up to "upgrade" the pf driver to handle partitions.
>
> You would not be able to anyway -- the pf device does not have the
> minor number space to support partitions. ...
I don't think that means that one *can't* do it. I agree that
it would be a bad idea to invalidate the existing minor numbering for
pg, but one could either support an additional major (less than
stellar solution), or use, perhaps the high bit of the minor to select
between the current minor numbering, and a scheme with the more usual
low 4 bits of partition, with the remaining bits between there and the
high bit for unit select. I'm sure that there are yet more
possibilities. I sort of like Blaise Glassend's suggestion of
providing an option in the loop back driver to support partitioning
> ... What *really* should be done
> is fix paride and/or the lower-level driver (on26) to treat Zip drives
> as regular disks using the pd driver (eg /dev/pdXn) not as floppy
> drives (/dev/pfN). ...
That sounds like just another hack. There apparently really
is a difference in how to talk to "plain" IDE versus how to talk to
ATAPI, and pd versus pf drivers are divided along those lines. I see
no reason that paride or all of the protocol modules should give a
rat's fuzzy behind about what kind of IDE device with which they are
allowing the higher level drivers to communicate. It is the pd driver
that doesn't deal with the ATAPI zip disk. It causes no trouble for
on26 of paride.
>... Actually, *I'm* not convinced that there really is a
> reason for 'IDE Floppy Drives', unless there is something totally brain
> dead about the IDE interface spec. ...
When you're ready to re-manufacture the existing hardware base
gratis, then I'll pay heed to this opinion. Otherwise, I don't see
how it helps.
> ... In any case, it makes me very glad
> that I have managed to mostly avoid the whole IDE mess in the first
> place. The *only* IDE device I have to deal with is the hard drive in
> my laptop -- ALL of the rest of my computers are 100% SCSI (Hard
> drives, CD-ROM, tape drive, Zip drive, ORB drive, and Scanner). These
> sorts of sillienesses don't happen in the SCSI world -- *my* Zip drive
> is properly handled as a partitioned device (/dev/sdcN). ...
I congratulate you upon your wealth. And I congratulate the
developers of the SCSI drivers on their clairvoyance in not splitting
the upper level drivers in such a way that removable media was assumed
to be unpartitioned. But, at least until the New Hampshire high tech
job market improves, I'll be living with the hand-me-downs that I
have.
Bill
-- To unsubscribe, send mail to: linux-parport-request@torque.net --
-- with the single word "unsubscribe" in the body of the message. --
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 30 2003 - 13:48:34 EDT