From owner-freebsd-current Fri Nov 26 13:19:50 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (critter.freebsd.dk [212.242.40.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6783114C37 for ; Fri, 26 Nov 1999 13:19:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by critter.freebsd.dk (8.9.3/8.9.2) with ESMTP id WAA06150; Fri, 26 Nov 1999 22:19:03 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) To: Greg Lehey Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ST-506, ESDI and BAD144 ? In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 25 Nov 1999 13:09:20 EST." <19991125130920.10078@mojave.sitaranetworks.com> Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 22:19:03 +0100 Message-ID: <6148.943651143@critter.freebsd.dk> From: Poul-Henning Kamp Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In message <19991125130920.10078@mojave.sitaranetworks.com>, Greg Lehey writes: >On Wednesday, 24 November 1999 at 10:39:44 +0100, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: >> >> So I would like to propose that we discontinue support for ST-506, >> ESDI disks and BAD144 bad-sector remapping starting with the 4.0 >> release. >> >> So, is anyone running -current on ESDI or ST-506 disks in >> actual applications (as opposed for the gadget/novelty thrill or >> testing purposes) ? > >I don't suppose it would be that big a deal to remove the old driver, >but what speaks against leaving it in the tree along with a comment in >the GENERIC config file saying "if you use antediluvial disk hardware, >you may prefer to use an old driver too"? Well, couldn't we just as well say "if you use pre-cambrian disks please stick with the 3.X release branch" ? There are many indicies which support killing the wd.c driver: New hardware is supported (much) better by ata driver The ATAPI stuff in wd.c is a rather crude hack, ata driver handles it better. Wd.c is the only driver which keeps the BAD144 code alive in our tree, and nobody uses it. Modern drives do their own bad sector handling. The kind of hardware it supports which the ata doesn't is usually found in machines with less than 32Mbyte of RAM anyway, running 4.0 on such a machine is not even close to fun. (And modern motherboards/bioses seem to have lost the ability to handle old disks, at least the ones I tried here in my lab.) There is a long time until 5.0 which is our next chance. so, speak now, or forever bite your tongue... -- Poul-Henning Kamp FreeBSD coreteam member phk@FreeBSD.ORG "Real hackers run -current on their laptop." FreeBSD -- It will take a long time before progress goes too far! To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message