On 2/14/07, BandiPat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Tuesday 13 February 2007, BandiPat wrote:
> Question!
>
> I'm a bit confused on the new kernels and hard drives, optical
> devices. According to what I'm reading, any kernel 2.6.19 or above is
> now using the new libata module for drives. What this does basically
> is change all devices that were labeled as hdxx to sdxx designation.
> Is that correct so far?
>
> Now if you have SATA drives, they are already sdxx designated, so no
> changes are necessary in Grub or Lilo or /etc/fstab. But, if you
> have anything labeled with hdxx, those must be changed to sdxx to be
> recognized? Also, if that is correct, what happens to programs like
> k3b in seeing the drives?
>
> So let's say I have a dual SATA, not counting the Raid, and those
> will be sda & sdb, right?
>
> Now I have two optical devices, cdwriter, dvdwriter as hdc & hdd
> presently, so those become sde & sdf now?
>
> sata=sda
> sata=sdb
> hda=sdc
> hdb=sdd
> hdc=sde
> hdd=sdf
>
> Is my logic right or do optical devices not count in the whole scheme
> of things??
>
> thanks,
> Lee
======
Sorry, answering my own question after a bit more research, but thought
it might be helpful to others getting ready to try the new kernels.
From 2.6.19, the kernels are using the new libata device, which changes
things around for those people still using IDE/PATA devices in their
systems. I guess a "beware" is in order for those that can't wait to
try new things.
note:
(built with exclusive libata disk subsystem, take care to the new naming
if you still use PATA, hard disks will be named sdX , CD/DVD will be
seen as srX )
So the above would be correct, if all the devices were hard disks, but
not if there were some optical drives in the mix. Hope that helps
others moving to the newer kernels.
regards,
Lee
I think there is some basic confusion about the vanilla kernel.
Libata has been around forever (ie. since sata support started I believe).
As of 2.6.19 Libata added "experimental" support for a number of PATA
devices using the /dev/sda nomenclature.
Distros are still advised to use the traditional ide drivers via
/dev/hda. This is not likely to change anytime soon, but I have seen
that one specific driver in one specific architecture submitted a
patch to change the default to the libata version.
FYI: Changing from one set to the other is a basic kernel issue. A
specific IDE interface can only be controlled by one driver at a time
so you won't have the ability to access it both ways at the same time.
I think you can rmmod / insmod to change, but not if it is your root
drive.
So if you have a non-SUSE distro that has already changed they are
really pushing the envelope. I will be surprised if even opensuse
10.3 makes the jump. It is just too soon.
Also, when the libata pata drivers get more stable there has been
discussion of leaving both /dev/hda and /dev/sda behind. Maybe
/dev/disk will be used, but all of that discussion is very preliminary
as well.
Greg
--
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century
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