Hello developpers,
this is a short description of a particular wish of notebook
users. Since kernel 2.2.11 the buffer flushing deamon is no longer
a user space program but part of the kernel (in fs/buffer.c).
Before this kernel release it was the bdflush-program which
could be called with certain command line parameters in order
to control flushing of file system buffers. In particular in
combination with the hdparm-program it could be used to
spin down the hard disk (e.g. of laptops) if it was not accessed.
I know that by writing to /proc/sys/vm/bdflush relevant kernel
paramters may be modified. But there are certain limits compiled
into every kernel, which have the consequence that
*a silent hard disk hard disk is no longer feasible since kernel
2.2.11*.
I have modified the constants used in fs/buffer.c to allow for
bigger time intervals between forced buffer flushings. The "patch"
may be found at http://www.hmi.de/people/brunne/Spindown .
Shouldn't Linux support hard disk spindown during periods of
inactivity? Is the tiny patch worth of being included into standard
kernels?
Yours,
Tim Brunne
-- Tim Brunne | web: http://www.hmi.de/people/brunne Hahn-Meitner-Institut | email: brunne@hmi.de- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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