Re: ofpath is not compatible with non-builtin disk controllers

[Rick Thomas <rbthomas@pobox.com>]

Hi Benjamin,

First, let me apologize for the confusing non-specificity of my bug  
reports to you and everyone else who is following this (and related)  
bug(s).  The only excuse I can offer is that at the time I was  
submitting them, I wasn't sure what was causing the symptoms I was  
seeing.  All I knew was that I couldn't do a squeeze install or an  
upgrade from lenny to squeeze.  And I was frustrated by the total lack  
of response.

That said, and trying to go forward, the question now is "Where do we  
stand on getting this fixed?"

Can we come up with a list of specific problems -- and a 'todo' list  
of release-critical things that need to be fixed for PowerPC Debian  
Squeeze?

In that line, we need a list of individual folks who are interested in  
contributing to this effort.  Is this bug report (589701) a good one  
to encourage all these folks to subscribe to in the interest of  
centralized record-keeping?

Thanks!

Rick

On Sep 24, 2010, at 7:33 AM, Benjamin Cama wrote:

> Hi Rick,
>
> I am a bit disappointed about how this is ending, but I just realized
> you are using an addon Promise card as disk controller. This is not
> supported by ofpath, which just handle IDE controllers using the old  
> ATA
> stack or true SCSI controllers. In short, it is hardwired for a list  
> of
> disk controllers.
>
> Your bug is a bit different from #572869, even if he's also using a  
> SATA
> (so, new ATA stack) controller, but this is the Apple provided one,  
> and
> yaboot has a special case for it (even if it seems not to work so well
> for now).
>
> I don't really know what to do about that. From what I read (#372186),
> ofpathname is better for recent controllers using the new ATA stack,  
> and
> it's what grub2 is using. Still, it may lack proper handling of old
> controllers, even if we can see (again) people willing to bring that
> from ofpath, without much result.
>
> Furthermore, since 2.6.34, benh wrote a new driver (macio) for  
> newworld
> Macs (I don't know if it supports /all/ machines) that is based on the
> new ATA stack, so ofpath will need to support it soon (well, it's for
> after squeeze at least), or we'll need to switch to ofpathname (or  
> grub2
> alltogether).
>
> Anyway, thanks for your perseverance, but try to be more specific on
> your problems next time ;-)
>
> Regards,
> benjamin