Messages in this thread | ![/](/images/icornerl.gif) | | Subject | Re: binary kernel drivers re. hpt370 and redhat | From | Alan Cox <> | Date | 27 Aug 2003 23:17:00 +0100 |
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On Mer, 2003-08-27 at 22:57, Stephen Hemminger wrote: > On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 18:40:30 -0400 > joe briggs <jbriggs@briggsmedia.com> wrote: > > > I have a client who has a raid controller currently supported under windows, > > and now wants to support linux as a bootable device. Currently, some of > > their trade secrets are contained in the driver as opposed to the controller
Standard practice - its not IMHO so much trade secrets as "improving the barrier to vendor change" 8). Pretty much all of the older PATA controllers don't actually do hardware raid but bios/driver raid - ie its the equivalent (or roughly so) of the md layer but locks you into the vendor. The notable exception here is the 3ware card (there are a couple of others too - Promise Supertrak100, SX6000)
We know some of these formats (eg see the hptraid driver in 2.4.2x)
> The problem is more in the bootloader (LILO or GRUB) would not no how > to do raid. The /boot partition would have to be on a non-raid partition. > Same problem if driver is statically linked in the kernel.
Plus little issues like the GPL 8)
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