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Date:      Tue, 1 Aug 2006 13:10:58 -0300 (ADT)
From:      User Freebsd <freebsd@hub.org>
To:        Scott Long <scottl@samsco.org>
Cc:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: iir(4) driver (Was: Re: Safe card to replace for ICP Vortex GDT851...)
Message-ID:  <20060801125751.W27679@ganymede.hub.org>
In-Reply-To: <44CF74CC.4070401@samsco.org>
References:  <20060731224403.T27679@ganymede.hub.org> <20060801075159.GD64880@hugo10.ka.punkt.de> <20060801083550.GE64880@hugo10.ka.punkt.de> <20060801113704.K27679@ganymede.hub.org> <20060801150540.GA10310@hugo10.ka.punkt.de> <44CF74CC.4070401@samsco.org>

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On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Scott Long wrote:

> Ok guys, time for a small breather here.  All these claims about
> EoE and orphanage and whatnot are a bit premature and underinformed.
> First, the iir driver is being worked on when the need arises.  Several
> bugs were fixed in it a few months ago, and until Mark's recent series
> of mails on it, no other problems had been reported.  So far there is
> only one person reporting unhappiness with it, which doesn't necessarily
> mean that there is systematic trouble with the driver or the hardware.
> Second, various Adaptec sources have confirmed that they do support
> FreeBSD.  Making big statements in public that they don't, or that it's
> not up to ones' standards or hopes, isn't terribly useful or productive.
> I'd hate for FreeBSD to turn into That Other BSD that publically abuses
> and harasses vendors for percieved sleights.  There are much more
> positive and product ways to fix problems and form good relationships,
> and those ways are actively being pursued by some people right now.

As email'd previous, I do apologize if my email was taken as "disgruntled 
against Adaptec", for it was not meant as such ... it was merely meant as 
a warning to others, similar to your disclaimer below, that if you are 
running a card using the iir(4) driver, and are looking to move up to 
FreeBSD 6.x, that they might experience issues ...

Please also note that until I hit what, from most angles, was appearing to 
be major brick walls, I was doing everything I could to, and am still 
willing to, provide all of the information I can towards diagnosing and 
fixing the issue ...

I had tried all avenues that I knew about ... I tried email'ng the listed 
MAINTAINER, no response ... I got an email from one developer telling me 
that there wasn't much that could be done, due to the closed specs, 
without being able to get ahold of said MAINTAINER ... and the response I 
got back from ICP Vortex was one of "the inbox driver should work fine, 
but we don't official support FreeBSD" ... it doesn't leave much of a warm 
feeling that the driver is anything but orphaned :(

My email was meant as a warning so that others could hopefully avoid the 
several weeks it took me to get to the point that all *appeared* lost ...

Also, please note that in my email, I did finish it off with a plea that 
if anyone from Adaptec, or working with them, was out there, that my 
server was pretty much at their disposal to fix the problem, even at the 
risk of losing clients due to the downtime ...

> And here again is my standard disclaimer: I highly recommend that anyone 
> who takes their data integrity seriously should spend time qualifying 
> any RAID solution that they are interested in before putting it into 
> production.  What works for your workload might not work for someone 
> else's workload, and vice-versa.

In this case, we're talking about 3 servers that ran flawlessly with the 
iir(4) driver under 4.x, that are no exhibiting the deadlock/hang issues, 
after upgrading to FreeBSD 6.x ... Up until upgrading to FreeBSD 6.x, I've 
*never* had a problem with either an Adaptec controller, or running one 
with FreeBSD ...



  >
> Scott
>
>
> Patrick M. Hausen wrote:
>> Hello!
>> 
>> 
>>> 'k, just to clarify here ... the new products won't be based on the iir(4) 
>>> driver then?
>> 
>> 
>> Yes, they won't.
>> 
>> 
>>> Basically, should the iir(4) driver be considered EOE also?
>> 
>> 
>> As far as Adaptec and ICP Vortex are concerned, yes. Since the
>> driver is Open Source, there is no enforced EOE, just "orphanage",
>> if nobody is willing to work on it.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Patrick M. Hausen
>> Leiter Netzwerke und Sicherheit
>
>

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email . scrappy@hub.org                              MSN . scrappy@hub.org
Yahoo . yscrappy               Skype: hub.org        ICQ . 7615664



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