Re: Bug#345067: My understanding of the IDE mess, and why it does not make sense to apply the proposed patch
On Thu, Mar 09, 2006 at 01:35:23AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 10:35:38PM -0800, Jurij Smakov wrote:
> > On Thu, 9 Mar 2006, Sven Luther wrote:
>
> > >As quoted from http://wiki.debian.org/LinuxKernelIdeProblem, it is no clear
> > >that ide-generic and via82cxxx to take only one example do exactly the same
> > >thing, and there is no way both could be needed at the same time, and in
> > >fact
> > >it is contrary, what do i say, anathema, to both the linux ide layer and
> > >the
> > >yaird design document, to even imagine that.
>
> > I've independently done the analysis of the IDE layer initialization and
> > can confirm the technical part of Sven's conclusion: ide-generic takes
> > over all hardware interfaces (hwifs), which do not have the 'present' flag
> > set in their corresponding entry in the ide_hwifs[] structure. Normally,
> > the native IDE drivers set this flag during their initialization (via82cxxx
> > does it through the chain of calls ide_setup_pci_device() ->
> > probe_hwif_init_with_fixup() -> hwif_init()). So, if ide-generic is loaded
> > last, it will pick up only the interfaces, which have not been claimed by
> > any native drivers, which is the desired result. Looking at the code I
> > cannot see how the native drivers can depend in any way on the ide-generic
> > being loaded before them.
>
> What version of the kernel was this analysis done with? The workaround in
> yaird is explicitly commented as existing for the benefit of older kernel
> versions; can you assure us that this aspect of the driver design is
> unchanged from 2.6.8 through 2.6.15?
Steve, what is the interest of doing this ? We only have 2.6.15 currently in
sid/etch, and sarge uses 2.6.8 together with initrd-tool, so it is a
non-issue.
And even if there where a bug in older kernel, the ramdisk generator hacks
where only there to confuse the issue by hiding the real problem and should
thus be backed out.
Furthermore, even if this was the case, it was a kernel bug which would have
been noticed, and should be fixed ASAP, since it it contrary to the essence
itself of the ide-layer and of the yaird design.
Finally, please have a look at the current conversation between jonas and
zomb on #debian-kernel, and you will clearly understand why this all
degenerated such, it seems jonas is incapable of grasping technical arguments
and prefers to keep a proven-wrong theory and justify it by all means possible
until the opponents just stop caring. I think this was why it degenerated so,
because i also have upto a point this defect, altough i know to stop when
proven with real technical arguments, which nobody seemed to care about all
those past months.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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