..
> The problem is that the USB Storage driver has some issues waiting for
> disks to acquiesce before scanning them.
The complaints make me think of a class of problems I've been aware of for
some time.
I think it was about a year ago (probably longer) people began showing
up at installfests with external USB drives, and wanting to install a
system on them. It all looked promising, right up to the point where the
results are booted. The usual result was that Linux would boot just fine,
but fail at the point where it's supposed to mount the root
partition. This, because the loader uses the BIOS to load the kernel and
the initial ramdisk, but the actual running system lacks a USB driver. Or,
at least, a properly set up one. There were some successes, in the capable
hands of our installfest guides, but I don't have details. I think a lot
of it was, finding the right distribution that happened to get this part
right, or have an option or facility to help get this part right. Think
hit-or-miss.
Knoppix exhibited this problem as well. I researched this somewhat
because at the time I was trying to create a boot-from-a-thumbdrive file
server, using a live CD as a starting point. Here, I found that Knoppix
(3.9 at the time, I think) didn't have a solution--didn't really recognize
a problem. Some searching turned up an article in Linux Gazette with one
solution, so it wasn't like there was a way I didn't know about. I think I
found another article, which I don't recall, except the relevant script
detail. It went something like this:
- load the USB driver
- sleep, the try to mount the drive, about 5 times.
Sound familiar?
The thread about LVM and USB seems to have resulted in the same
alogrithm. Now I remember this "cart-before-the-horse" problem was
associated with PCMCIA as well. PCMCIA network cards, in
particular. I guess some problems just don't have obvious
solutions. But USB seems to still have second-class status when it comes
to the O.S.
Barry
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