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Date:      Wed, 10 Apr 1996 14:08:45 -0700 (MST)
From:      Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
To:        j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Cc:        freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: floppy format detection [was Re: devfs questions]
Message-ID:  <199604102108.OAA02399@phaeton.artisoft.com>
In-Reply-To: <199604101125.NAA13069@uriah.heep.sax.de> from "J Wunsch" at Apr 10, 96 01:25:06 pm

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> > > But only for the first two drives. :-)
> > 
> > I really do not see the problem with time penalizing people for old
> > hardware.
> 
> It's not a question of penalizing, it's a matter of not excluding them
> from the game.

I want it to work.  It's will just happen to be slow doing the automatic
detect in the old/broken hardware case.  Slow, not prevented from.

> > I can stuff a floppy in a drive on a DOS box, do a "dir" and have it
> > list the floppy contents *regardless* of the format.
> 
> Unless it's formatted with 1 KB sectors. :)

Then it's not a floppy with a supported FS type on it and I can ignore it.

If I have supported FS types that can use that media, then I need to
autodetect.  No matter how long it takes to do so.

I'd put that at the end of the searchlist, sice I'd have to assign
a very low probability to that particular format.  8-).


> > And you guys are saying FreeBSD can never do this thing that DOS does
> > because it needs to have the device identified for a manual mount
> > instead of a mount as a result of automatic device identification.
> 
> I didn't say FreeBSD could never do this.

Good.  We agree.  8-).


> > For comparison, see the SCSI floppy drives ...
> 
> Those i've seen so far are *terribly* slow in mounting a new floppy.
> During the time where a DG/UX machine with its SCSI-to-floppy bridge,
> or an SGI Indy with its floptical were checking the format, you've
> already copied an entire floppy in FreeBSD.
> 
> I would hesitate to pick them as a good example of automagic format
> detection.

They aren't a good example.  They are an example of it being possible
in one of the worst cases you could arrange to actually happen.  They
are the old/broken hardware case.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



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