From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jul 6 04:26:09 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id EAA18837 for questions-outgoing; Sat, 6 Jul 1996 04:26:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id EAA18832 for ; Sat, 6 Jul 1996 04:26:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ad14749; 6 Jul 96 11:25 GMT Received: from jraynard.demon.co.uk ([158.152.42.77]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa17812; 6 Jul 96 12:23 +0100 Received: (from fqueries@localhost) by jraynard.demon.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA04742; Sat, 6 Jul 1996 00:42:28 GMT Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 00:42:28 GMT Message-Id: <199607060042.AAA04742@jraynard.demon.co.uk> From: James Raynard To: white@tehama.engr.ucdavis.edu CC: questions@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <9607052152.AA15526@tehama.engr.ucdavis.edu> (white@tehama.engr.ucdavis.edu) Subject: Re: Problem with ft on tape backup. Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [A number of ft-related problems] The ft driver is known to need some serious work done on it, but it seems to have become "orphaned". Apparently it's not exactly a very friendly device to write drivers for - no less than three people have rolled up their sleeves, determined to finally get it sorted out, only to give up in despair. Sadly this is a weakness in free software - if the only reward for doing something is the enjoyment gained from doing it, there is very little incentive to do things which are not enjoyable. :-( If anyone does fancy having a go at it, Linux has a working driver which could perhaps be used as a base for an upgrade (so I'm told). The other possibility is paying someone to write one, but I suppose most people with floppy tapes would have bought something else if they could afford this kind of thing... > Also, one last thing, is this the type of thing one would submit as > a bug or not. I have not yet done so, but can file a bug report if > people think that it fits the area of problem reports. The "unrecoverable write error" certainly fits the bill. I'm not so sure about the other one, but if you're fairly certain it wasn't "pilot error", by all means add it to the report. > Sorry this is so long. Thanks in advance for any help. Sorry this isn't very helpful. :-( -- James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland james@jraynard.demon.co.uk http://www.freebsd.org/~jraynard/