Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Sun, 22 Oct 2000 23:06:26 +0200 | From | Andreas Franck <> | Subject | IDE-Floppy and devfs |
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Hi Paul, hi linux-kernel audience,
some szggestion for the upcoming 2.4 release ide-floppy driver: It really works nice without devfs, but the ide-floppy behaviour in connection with devfs is a bit strange.
If ide-floppy is compiled as a module, which is loaded (or autoloaded by some smart devfs rule) when no disk is in the drive, NO devfs entries are created, so there is no way to access the drive. Even worse, when a disk is inserted, the module is still loaded so there is no way to access the disk! Only manual unloading and reloading of the module will do the trick.
I'd suggest something like the cdrom approach: There is always one device node for removable devices, regardless of any media present in the drive. This could be /dev/ide/host0/bus1/target1/lun0/floppy or something like that.
Accessing this file should trigger a probe for the media (which may be partitioned in ide-floppy devices, which makes life a bit harder). By this probe, the /dev/ide/.../lun0/disc and /dev/ide/.../lun0/part4 (or any other partitions) might be created, if there is a medium in the drive; a symlink to the "right" partition (part4 for normal ZIP disks, AFAIK) shhould be placed in a directory of its own, for example /dev/ide/floppy/c0b1t1u0, and anotherone perhaps in /dev/idefloppy/floppy0 or something.
I have already implemented the first half of this (creation of the floppy node which will trigger the partition scan when accessed), I have attached my patch for review here. Its still quite hackish, but I'm sure you can follow my ideas with what I explained above - if not, don't hesitate to ask.
->- snip -<-
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