Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 02:06:46 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: shmit@kublai.com Cc: tomdean@ix.netcom.com, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: MAKEDEV Support for sd and st Devices (was: time for some new man pages) Message-ID: <199810010206.TAA19992@usr01.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <19980930102536.K307@kublai.com> from "Brian Cully" at Sep 30, 98 10:25:36 am
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> > Is it possible to restore sd and st support just to be compatible with > > other operating systems? Even if FreeBSD core members do not want > > them? Is this even a consideration? > > What other operating systems? The only ones I can think of are > NetBSD and OpenBSD, and I wouldn't be surprised if they grabbed > the CAM code soon anyway. The name of the drive device is going to > be at least OS specific, and really it's host specific (think about > wd versus sd), and will continue to be that way until the Unix > world unites under a common GPL'd standard. Actually, st has been fairly standard for a long time on NCR Tower XP, NCR Tower 32, Arrete 1100, Huerikon, SunOS, Solaris, Ultrix, Gould "PowerOS", Zilog "Zeus", SCO Xenix, SCO OpenServer, Microport UNIX, ISC UNIX, etc.. Each of these systems supports a /dev/rst0. Most of them support /dev/rst0n (no rewind), as well. The common core of this is that NCR wrote the tape drivers for most systems, and built most of the tape drive firmware under contract. The "sd" usage in BSD is less standard, since we (stupidly) chose our own formant for minor devices, instead of using standard controller/target/unit/lun notation like everyone else. > The name change may have been gratuitous, but I can't really object, > since the old devices work just fine. Besides, if you figure that > the IDE code will end up under CAM in the future, it makes sense > to call it `da' instead of `sd'. Soren said that he's not going to do the work for the new ATAPI code. In any case, there's not really a compelling reason for the change, and that answers the question I was asking before everyone loaded their political baggage onto my bandwagon on one side or the other. All this could have been avoided by saying "Yes, the change is gratuitous, but I'm writing the code". 8-). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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