Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 23:50:29 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: kjk1@ukc.ac.uk Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Do *you* have problems with floppies? Message-ID: <199709122350.QAA20102@usr04.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.SV4.3.95.970912220547.4487A-100000@kestrel.ukc.ac.uk> from "K.J.Koster" at Sep 12, 97 10:33:27 pm
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> > The correct way for a multitasking OS to deal with this is *NOT* to > > drop into a buzz loop and to cease being a multitasking OS for the > > duration of the loop, as you are suggesting. > > I agree with you that busy-looping on a device is not the correct way to > go about I/O, and I understand why FreeBSD does not busy-loop. However, we > are not talking about SCSI or IDE drivers, we are talking about a lowly > floppy driver. Busy looping is wrong. It doesn't matter if it's self-defense, it's still wrong. It's maybe justifiable, but justifiability and wrongness are completely orthogonal attributes. > This discussion is about people finding their floppies > trashed by their OS. Hardly `the correct way'. You may have a valid complaint, that FreeBSD did not do the wrong thing, and then rationalize it after the fact to justify doing the wrong thing; OR you may have a vlid complaint that FreeBSD allows you to access the drive when you are loading your system above the timing constraints. > If I look at how I use my floppy drive, I'm usually sitting and waiting > for it to finish anyway, so if my CPU is clocking idle time or system time > makes no difference for me, personally. Then run whatever process at a much higher priority. Problem solved. > FreeBSD has special options for people with broken keyboard resets, > broken APM and broken PCMCIA cards. Why not add another one for unfifo'd > floppy controllers? We have one. It's called "-s". Use this option at the boot prompt. The floppy will function as it did during the problem-free install you reported. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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