Re: CD writing in future Linux (stirring up a hornets' nest)

From: Joerg Schilling
Date: Mon Feb 13 2006 - 08:24:13 EST


Christian Neumair <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Am Freitag, den 10.02.2006, 16:06 -0500 schrieb Bill Davidsen:
> > The kernel could provide a list of devices by category. It doesn't have
> > to name them, run scripts, give descriptions, or paint them blue. Just a
> > list of all block devices, tapes, by major/minor and category (ie.
> > block, optical, floppy) would give the application layer a chance to do
> > it's own interpretation.
>
> Introducing more than interface for doing the same thing can be very
> confusing and counter-productive. You'll create new, undocumented or
> semi-documented interfaces which will lead to a dependency chaos.

So you concur with me that the fact that Linux introduced another interface
for SCSI was onfusing and counter-productive.


> Some random script will work with kernel 2.6.11, 2.6.12 and 2.6.13, but
> not 2.6.14 and later because a new device class was introduced and two
> typos were fixed. Especially considering that the new linux development
> model makes it likely that major changes go into micro releases,
> stability and reliability will be a huge problem.

The main problem is that there is no grant that a new model will survive
a time frame that makes sense to implement support.

> > Since -scanbus tells you a
> > device is a CDrecorder, or something else, *any user* is likely to be
> > able to tell it from DCD, CD-ROM, etc. Nice like of text for most devices...
>
> Well, "any user" just opens his Windows Explorer and takes a look at the
> icon of his drive D:\\ to see whether it's a CD-ROM or DVD. It is
> interesting to see professional programmers often argue that a

This is not true: a drive letter mapping does not need to exist on MS-WIN
in order to be able to access it via ASPI or SPTI.

Jörg

--
EMail:joerg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (uni)
schilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/