From owner-freebsd-isp  Tue Jun 17 08:05:08 1997
Return-Path: <owner-isp>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA18432
          for isp-outgoing; Tue, 17 Jun 1997 08:05:08 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from etinc.com (et-gw-fr1.etinc.com [204.141.244.98])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA18424
          for <isp@freebsd.org>; Tue, 17 Jun 1997 08:05:05 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from ntws (ntws.etinc.com [204.141.95.142]) by etinc.com (8.8.3/8.6.9) with SMTP id LAA20968; Tue, 17 Jun 1997 11:13:49 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970617110435.00afb750@etinc.com>
X-Sender: dennis@etinc.com
X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 11:04:38 -0400
To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
From: dennis <dennis@etinc.com>
Subject: Re: tar hangs 2.2.x system
Cc: isp@freebsd.org
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

At 02:38 PM 6/15/97 +0200, you wrote:
>As Ruslan Shevchenko wrote:
>
>> > tar -cvf /dev/rfd0 somefiles
>> > 
>> > Note the "raw" device.
>> > 
>> 
>> But it is a bug.
>> 
>> Anybody, do send_pr
>
>No, don't.  For one, it was a known bug, so the PR wouldn't probably
>have caused more reason for anybody at all, and now, Bruce has fixed
>this bug a couple of days ago.
>
>Folks, nevertheless:
>
>	Buffered devices (/dev/fd0) are JUST and ONLY for mounting
>	something (and for swapon(8)).
>
>	Raw devices (/dev/rfd0) are FOR EVERYTHING ELSE.
>
>	(The terms `block device' and `character device' are
>	misnomers you should never use.  Historical errors.)
>
>Sorry for shouting, but from some non-newbie like dennis, i would have
>expected to know this.  I'm repeating this over and over again to my
>clients on any Unix course i'm teaching.

Perhaps true, but in the commercial world you cant instantaneously change
all of your
documents and procedures to fix something that has worked since the
beginning of
time. They both SHOULD work, and changing a basic procedure is quite painful.

Dennis