Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 01:01:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com> To: sos@freebsd.org Cc: davidg@root.com, hackers@freebsd.org, vak@cronyx.ru Subject: Re: atapi.c and wcd.c missing.... Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.950918004145.147A-100000@localhost> In-Reply-To: <199509180715.AAA05935@freefall.freebsd.org>
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On Mon, 18 Sep 1995 sos@freebsd.org wrote:
> In reply to Jake Hamby who wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, 16 Sep 1995, David Greenman wrote:
> >
> > > There are serious bugs in the code at the moment that cause it to break
> > > support for a significant number of IDE _disks_. I will not be bringing in
> > > this code until those bugs are fixed.
> > >
> > > -DG
> >
> > Has anyone reported bugs with the ATAPI support failing for IDE disks?
> > If so, which version are you using? If these problems have been
> > resolved, I would like to see IDE CD-ROMs supported in the GENERIC 2.1.0
> > kernel (you'll sell more Walnut Creek CD-ROMs for sure :-)
>
> The 1.3 version is in -current (I committed the patches last week)
> And yes it still has problems with some old IDE disks that gets
> confused by the ATAPI probestuff. I'm not sure taht this is solvable
> at this point...
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> Soren Schmidt (sos@FreeBSD.org | sos@login.dknet.dk) FreeBSD Core Team
> So much code to hack -- so little time
Okay, the way I see it, there are three possible choices for ATAPI support
in 2.1.0-RELEASE:
1) Don't support IDE CD-ROMs at all. This is, IMHO, the worst choice,
since it shuts out a number of users, and will reduce the number of CD's
Walnut Creek sells. Of course, you could argue that a suitably advanced
user would roll their own ATAPI kernel, put it on a custom boot disk, and
install 2.1.0-RELEASE from the CD, but if they don't have an existing
FreeBSD system, this is impossible.
2) Make a special boot floppy for ATAPI support (a la Linux boot/root
disks, where there is an IDE kernel and three different SCSI kernels due
to various incompatibilities). This is kind of silly, and until now,
hasn't been necessary, since the userconfig option normally allows probing
for individual devices to be enabled/disabled at boot time, but since
ATAPI is an option and not a device driver, it can't be disabled in this
way. Still, there are other users who would benefit from an alternate
kernel: For example, laptop users who can't get syscons to work, might
need a pcvt-based kernel. And after all, there's plenty of room for an
extra 1200k boot floppy on the CD.
3) Put ATAPI support in GENERIC and have an alternate floppy for people
with old IDE hard drives that fail under the ATAPI probe. This is very
similar to #2, but assumes that there are more users with IDE CD-ROMs than
users with old, ATAPI-incompatible IDE hard drives (a fair assumption?)
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Jake Hamby | E-Mail: jehamby@lightside.com
Student, Cal Poly University, Pomona | System Administrator, JPL
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