Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 12 May 1999 01:43:34 +0200 (MET DST) | From | Andries.Brouwer@cwi ... | Subject | RE: The WHY's (RE: ide drive w/dma ... system crash) |
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From Nick.BROWN@coe.int Tue May 11 19:16:19 1999
If you mean the HDIO_GETBIOS ioctl which is currently in "#if 0" in sd_ioctl.c, then I think it should go to the trash, because I think we may be in danger of building a house of cards here. The whole ioctl can be removed, I think (*).
- We should be able to get all the information we need from the IDE controller
WARNING:
I have *not* submitted a kernel patch involving HDIO_GETBIOS. I do not wish this patch to be put into the kernel. On ftp.cwi.nl under /pub/aeb/getbios or so there are a kernel patch and a C-program, and I ask everybody with a recent machine and a tiny bit of spare time to make a kernel with this patch, run the C program and mail me the results. (Together with a description of their BIOS and disk hardware and the relevant kernel boot messages and hdparm -i output.) This is a data collecting phase.
At some point in the future I hope to propose a patch somewhat in the direction of the `HDIO_GETBIOS' patch, but it involves a rewriting of a lot of partition stuff and only fragments exist today.
And no, we are not able to get all the information we need from the IDE controller. You see, the information we talk about have nothing to do with the actual disk hardware - what fdisk and LILO would like to know is what geometry or geometries the BIOS and other operating systems will invent for this hardware. So far they did not try to determine this themselves, but asked the kernel using the HDIO_GETGEO ioctl. However, this ioctl returns the wrong results (as you know) and it is far easier to let the kernel make all relevant information available to user space than to make the kernel decide. So, no, the ioctl should not yet be inserted, and no again, it is not superfluous - it is just that I am slow, and also would like a bit more data, especially on very recent BIOSes.
Andries
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