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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Message-Id: <199604031807.LAA19546@phaeton.artisoft.com>
Subject: Re: Hacked kernel with option to disable "green" mode
To: Brett_Glass@ccgate.infoworld.com (Brett Glass)
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 11:07:26 -0700 (MST)
Cc: ejs@bfd.com, terry@lambert.org, freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org,
        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <9603038285.AA828550942@ccgate.infoworld.com> from "Brett Glass" at Apr 3, 96 09:09:06 am
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> >> It seems to me the best place for disabling "green" mode would be in
> >> a user hack to the /etc/rc.local.
> 
> > Exactly.  hdparm (8) does this for Linux, and that is how it is usually 
> > set up.  Call the command in rc.local, no kernel hacking other than the 
> > interface to allow root processes to send commands to the drive (not sure
> > hdparm is a generic ioctl interface or not).
> 
> This would not work for installation. I couldn't get FreeBSD *installed*
> before I added the hard disk code to the kernel.

And you can't add the code if it isn't installed somewhere to let you
build a kernel.

And you can't add the code by default because it's specific to a
single hardware manufacturer, and may in fact damage or otherwise
render uninstallable hardware from other manufacturers because
private command values are allowed to be assigned on a per-vendor
basis.

8-(.

The code should go in, and be replaced later by an optional hardware
specific user space command, IMO.


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