Re: Soft ejects
Ethan == Ethan Benson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ethan On 9/1/2000 Brian May wrote: Brian [1] Dos/windows copes with this problem in a different (IMHO Brian broken) way - it keeps track of which disk is inserted, and if Brian it needs to read/write to another disk, it complains to the Brian user to reinsert the original disk. Why is this mechanism Brian broken? For starters: some games will automatically eject a Brian CD-ROM and ask you to insert the next CD-ROM. For some reason, Brian windows will often decide that it still needed the original Brian CD-ROM, and ask you to reinsert it!!! It even goes as far as to Brian suggest that the CD-ROM might be dirty. Now thats what I call Brian machine is smarter!!! Ethan I never noticed that back when i briefly tinkered with win95, Ethan one thing I find interesting is windoze does NOT lock the cd Ethan drawer closed when a CD is in use like GNU/Linux and MacOS do, Ethan for example i insert a CD and run some program on it under Ethan win95 then press the eject button and it spits out the CD and Ethan windoze blue screened shortly thereafter. Ethan I have never seen windoze ask for a device back again, i didn't Ethan know it had such a function win* does not appear to really have Ethan a concept of `mounted' filesystems as far as i could tell. Back in the sad, sad days when I was a Windoze programmer, we had to make the APPLICATION PROGRAM do that. I.e. check for the existence of the file D:\flagfile.000 and if not found, bitch at the user to insert the correct CDROM again. Really high tech. -- Ian Zimmerman Lightbinders, Inc. 2325 3rd Street #324, San Francisco, California 94107
Re: Soft ejects
Fish Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The bottom line is, it isn't appropriate for my machine to be making decisions as to whether it is appropriate to eject a dis(k/c) or not. I should be making those decisions because the machine is unreliable and if I make a bad decision then I, as the user, am the one who has to pay for my ignorance. (and not the poor machine, I suppose ;) ... ) Many windows users are uncomfortable with this idea, and that is perfectly sensical. (don't think that word exists, but hey, opposite of nonsensical, right?) They ought to just stick to windows, the inferior system that doesn't let you make mistakes (or intelligent decisions) and instead makes them for you. Whow, all those super intelligent admins here ... I for all have many times forgotten to unmount the floppy before taking it out, not to talk about the users in our computer pool. (If you as an admin had to come and help out the following user who can't use the drive then, like me, you would maybe think a little bit more differently about that.) Unlike many others, I don't share the view that linux needs to be made more newbie friendly. Doing that will kill everything that made it great, and turn it into another Windoze. I can't see how desktops like Gnome or others have taken away the console from you, so you CAN both put in user friendlyness in the system and have all Unix power remaining at the same time. I don't care if the entire world doesn't all use GNU systems, as long as I have them to get my work done. But maybe without all this growing newbie user base GNU and Linux wouldn't have developped as much as they do now. If somebody doesn't understand, I will be helpful and try to explain, but if they don't want to tolerate a system with a learning curve then they don't have to use it, and probably don't deserve to. Leave this domain to those of us who do care to learn. I wonder if 'learning' really involves to care about remembering whether a floppy is mounted or not -- shouldn't using a computer involve that it remembers just such stupid things for you? (Sure you are using some scripts and cron instead of remembering all those commands and tasks you seldomly has to do, aren't you?) There are times in Word when I need to use a lowercase letter /i/ as a word but it doesn't think I should. This is precisely the reason we go to alternatives to M$, because M$ software always thinks it's smarter than we are and never is. So don't go bringing M$isms to us and our alternatives, please. (Talking about learning curves --) this is a user preference and can be turned off (it's another question if it should be turned on by default) -- you can have the same behaviour in emacs too. I'm not pleading for 'more power to the machine, less for the user who is knowing what she/he does', but I think my intelligence should be allowed to concentrate on more meaningfull things as mounted or unmounted floppies; but then there are things like autofs or other 'intelligent' programs which can take away those stupid tasks from me -- let's work for making these tools (and their installation scripts) more perfect, so these things don't bother us any more further on. Greetings, joachim
Re: Soft ejects
I agree completely. Sean Joachim Trinkwitz wrote: Fish Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The bottom line is, it isn't appropriate for my machine to be making decisions as to whether it is appropriate to eject a dis(k/c) or not. I should be making those decisions because the machine is unreliable and if I make a bad decision then I, as the user, am the one who has to pay for my ignorance. (and not the poor machine, I suppose ;) ... ) Many windows users are uncomfortable with this idea, and that is perfectly sensical. (don't think that word exists, but hey, opposite of nonsensical, right?) They ought to just stick to windows, the inferior system that doesn't let you make mistakes (or intelligent decisions) and instead makes them for you. Whow, all those super intelligent admins here ... I for all have many times forgotten to unmount the floppy before taking it out, not to talk about the users in our computer pool. (If you as an admin had to come and help out the following user who can't use the drive then, like me, you would maybe think a little bit more differently about that.) Unlike many others, I don't share the view that linux needs to be made more newbie friendly. Doing that will kill everything that made it great, and turn it into another Windoze. I can't see how desktops like Gnome or others have taken away the console from you, so you CAN both put in user friendlyness in the system and have all Unix power remaining at the same time. I don't care if the entire world doesn't all use GNU systems, as long as I have them to get my work done. But maybe without all this growing newbie user base GNU and Linux wouldn't have developped as much as they do now. If somebody doesn't understand, I will be helpful and try to explain, but if they don't want to tolerate a system with a learning curve then they don't have to use it, and probably don't deserve to. Leave this domain to those of us who do care to learn. I wonder if 'learning' really involves to care about remembering whether a floppy is mounted or not -- shouldn't using a computer involve that it remembers just such stupid things for you? (Sure you are using some scripts and cron instead of remembering all those commands and tasks you seldomly has to do, aren't you?) There are times in Word when I need to use a lowercase letter /i/ as a word but it doesn't think I should. This is precisely the reason we go to alternatives to M$, because M$ software always thinks it's smarter than we are and never is. So don't go bringing M$isms to us and our alternatives, please. (Talking about learning curves --) this is a user preference and can be turned off (it's another question if it should be turned on by default) -- you can have the same behaviour in emacs too. I'm not pleading for 'more power to the machine, less for the user who is knowing what she/he does', but I think my intelligence should be allowed to concentrate on more meaningfull things as mounted or unmounted floppies; but then there are things like autofs or other 'intelligent' programs which can take away those stupid tasks from me -- let's work for making these tools (and their installation scripts) more perfect, so these things don't bother us any more further on. Greetings, joachim -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: Soft ejects
On 10/1/2000 Brian May wrote: However, I see you are now correct. Now data is written to the disk almost immediately (1 second delay) after it is dirty. This means the developers have put the safety of the disk ahead of performance issues... this is not necessarily the case, from my tests sometimes its flushed very quickly sometimes its not flushed till much later, it depends on what the system is doing i think. idle system - quick updates busy system - later updates. just a guess anyway. I don't know about the error message that forces you to remount the disk - I never got that myself. it all depends on the error condition settings, ie if the disk is mounted to remount readonly on errors you will have to remount it again to get it read-write, if you set it to panic then you have to reboot to use it again as the kernel will panic. (on ext2 anyway, I never use DOS unless I have to share the disk with a broken OS) -- Ethan Benson To obtain my PGP key: http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/pgp/
Re: Soft ejects
Quoting Fish Smith ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
It is not only newbies that can make stupid mistakes,
and remove a
floppy disk that is currently mounted...
I was taught in kindergarten /never/ to remove a disk
when the light was on, and I never do it. Removing
while it is mounted but not currently being read or
written isn't very damaging--you just get an error
message, have to unmount and remount.
While agreeing about the light, removing a disk when the light is
off is generally less damaging if you're (a) not in a hurry, i.e.
you leave it a while if writing, and (b) it's a FAT disk rather
than ext2. This is one reason why I only use FAT floppies. (The
other is I'm worried about people thinking ext2 floppies are
corrupted and throwing them away when they can't read them.)
Perhaps the real problem with soft ejects is that
current
implementations make it to easy to override, eg when
the power is off.
Personally, I think I would much prefer the risk of
not being able to
eject a disk, rather then the risk that someday I
will accidently
currupt an important disk by ejecting it when it is
still mounted.
This is more or less the same as saying personally I
would prefer not to be able to delete a file, rather
than the risk that I someday will accidentally delete
something important. Should your OS not allow you to
delete files manually? It is generally good policy to
ask are you sure you want to delete this file but
there is always going to be a chance of deleting files
you need, no matter how many precautions are added,
short of simply not allowing user deletion of files.
I don't agree with the comparison. If I decide to delete a
file, I make that decision using the evidence of the moment.
I don't need to have retained extra invisible state information
in my brain.
If I remove a floppy disk with the button, I need to
remember whether I wrote to it recently. I would also
need to remember if it was ext2 (were that possible in
view of my earlier decision not to use them).
I am willing to use ext2 jaz and zip disks because the
computer does the remembering for me. That's what computers
are good at.
These protection devices not need to turn you into a
windows[1] user, I
think it is just plain common sense. Other protection
mechanims
already exist in Linux, eg you can't eject a CDROM
that is mounted (I
guess this protects programs from crashing that are
currently using
it), you can't e2fsck a mounted filesystem, etc.
But if you had a hard eject button, you could eject
the CDROM while mounted, (even if the OS didn't like
it) something I have needed to do plenty of times but
have been unable.
I thought that's what the pinhole was for.
Note:
[1] Dos/windows copes with this problem in a
different (IMHO broken)
way - it keeps track of which disk is inserted, and
if it needs to
read/write to another disk, it complains to the user
to reinsert the
original disk. Why is this mechanism broken? For
starters: some games
will automatically eject a CD-ROM and ask you to
insert the next
CD-ROM. For some reason, windows will often decide
that it still
needed the original CD-ROM, and ask you to reinsert
it!!! It even goes
as far as to suggest that the CD-ROM might be dirty.
Now thats what I
call machine is smarter!!!
Everything windows does is (IMHO) broken. That's my
point. However, DOS doesn't have a problem with
taking media out whenever, as long as it doesn't have
the light on. I've never had DOS ask for a different
disk (except for individual applications which ask for
the disk they need, not the last one in.)
That's not my experience. I have hardcopy of the evidence
in front of me for two particular occasions (there have
been plenty more). With the then current disk in the drive,
DIR A: gave a correct listing of the disk. On changing
disks, DIR A: complained thus:
Invalid disk change reading drive A:
Please insert volume { serial 0070-06F4
Abort, Retry, Fail?
The { differed on each occasion - another said ~Ztp
but the serial number was always 0070-06F4, which, to the
best of my knowledge (and all my floppies were catalogued
under their VSN if they had one, label if not) I did not
and never had possessed.
On replacing the then current disk, DIR A: would work again.
Rebooting would make the problem go away.
Just thought I'd share that with you.
The bottom line I'm getting at here is the idea that
these machines are here for our effective use. They
make plenty of mistakes, always have and always will.
So do we, of course, but /we/ are the ones paying for
our /own/ mistakes, whereas if we give the machine
power over the decisions, presuming it is infallible,
/we/ pay for /its/ mistakes. If I'm paying for a
mistake, it damn well better be a mistake I made. One
thing I've learned in life, don't put yourself in a
position of depending on someone else unless you're
sure they'll come through. By that token, I also hate
others
Re: Soft ejects
Fish == Fish Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Fish Unlike many others, I don't share the view that linux needs Fish to be made more newbie friendly. Doing that will kill Fish everything that made it great, and turn it into another Fish Windoze. I don't care if the entire world doesn't all use Fish GNU systems, as long as I have them to get my work done. If Fish somebody doesn't understand, I will be helpful and try to Fish explain, but if they don't want to tolerate a system with a Fish learning curve then they don't have to use it, and probably Fish don't deserve to. Leave this domain to those of us who do Fish care to learn. It is not only newbies that can make stupid mistakes, and remove a floppy disk that is currently mounted... Perhaps the real problem with soft ejects is that current implementations make it to easy to override, eg when the power is off. Personally, I think I would much prefer the risk of not being able to eject a disk, rather then the risk that someday I will accidently currupt an important disk by ejecting it when it is still mounted. These protection devices not need to turn you into a windows[1] user, I think it is just plain common sense. Other protection mechanims already exist in Linux, eg you can't eject a CDROM that is mounted (I guess this protects programs from crashing that are currently using it), you can't e2fsck a mounted filesystem, etc. Note: [1] Dos/windows copes with this problem in a different (IMHO broken) way - it keeps track of which disk is inserted, and if it needs to read/write to another disk, it complains to the user to reinsert the original disk. Why is this mechanism broken? For starters: some games will automatically eject a CD-ROM and ask you to insert the next CD-ROM. For some reason, windows will often decide that it still needed the original CD-ROM, and ask you to reinsert it!!! It even goes as far as to suggest that the CD-ROM might be dirty. Now thats what I call machine is smarter!!! -- Brian May [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Soft ejects
On 9/1/2000 Brian May wrote: [1] Dos/windows copes with this problem in a different (IMHO broken) way - it keeps track of which disk is inserted, and if it needs to read/write to another disk, it complains to the user to reinsert the original disk. Why is this mechanism broken? For starters: some games will automatically eject a CD-ROM and ask you to insert the next CD-ROM. For some reason, windows will often decide that it still needed the original CD-ROM, and ask you to reinsert it!!! It even goes as far as to suggest that the CD-ROM might be dirty. Now thats what I call machine is smarter!!! I never noticed that back when i briefly tinkered with win95, one thing I find interesting is windoze does NOT lock the cd drawer closed when a CD is in use like GNU/Linux and MacOS do, for example i insert a CD and run some program on it under win95 then press the eject button and it spits out the CD and windoze blue screened shortly thereafter. I have never seen windoze ask for a device back again, i didn't know it had such a function win* does not appear to really have a concept of `mounted' filesystems as far as i could tell. MacOS on the other hand has what you describe, extremely annoying at that. (it halts the entire OS when it decides it must have a disk back) Ethan
OT: Re: Soft ejects
On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 23:09:43 -0900, Ethan Benson writes: On 9/1/2000 Brian May wrote: as far as to suggest that the CD-ROM might be dirty. Now thats what I call machine is smarter!!! which reminds me of a user crying: you dumb computer, do what I want, not what I say! *g* rw -- -- +++ EUnet/[EMAIL PROTECTED], 15.-17.2.'2k, Ebene02/Stand08 +++ - ___ - Robert WaldnerEUnet/AT tech staff // / ___ _/_ -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] RW960-RIPE --- /--- / / / / /___/ / --- ---EUnet EDV-DienstleistungsgesmbH--- -- /___ /___/ / / /___ /_ Diefenbachgasse 35A-1150 Wien - - Tel: +43 1 89933 Fax: +43 1 89933 533
Re: Soft ejects
It is not only newbies that can make stupid mistakes, and remove a floppy disk that is currently mounted... I was taught in kindergarten /never/ to remove a disk when the light was on, and I never do it. Removing while it is mounted but not currently being read or written isn't very damaging--you just get an error message, have to unmount and remount. Perhaps the real problem with soft ejects is that current implementations make it to easy to override, eg when the power is off. Personally, I think I would much prefer the risk of not being able to eject a disk, rather then the risk that someday I will accidently currupt an important disk by ejecting it when it is still mounted. This is more or less the same as saying personally I would prefer not to be able to delete a file, rather than the risk that I someday will accidentally delete something important. Should your OS not allow you to delete files manually? It is generally good policy to ask are you sure you want to delete this file but there is always going to be a chance of deleting files you need, no matter how many precautions are added, short of simply not allowing user deletion of files. These protection devices not need to turn you into a windows[1] user, I think it is just plain common sense. Other protection mechanims already exist in Linux, eg you can't eject a CDROM that is mounted (I guess this protects programs from crashing that are currently using it), you can't e2fsck a mounted filesystem, etc. But if you had a hard eject button, you could eject the CDROM while mounted, (even if the OS didn't like it) something I have needed to do plenty of times but have been unable. Note: [1] Dos/windows copes with this problem in a different (IMHO broken) way - it keeps track of which disk is inserted, and if it needs to read/write to another disk, it complains to the user to reinsert the original disk. Why is this mechanism broken? For starters: some games will automatically eject a CD-ROM and ask you to insert the next CD-ROM. For some reason, windows will often decide that it still needed the original CD-ROM, and ask you to reinsert it!!! It even goes as far as to suggest that the CD-ROM might be dirty. Now thats what I call machine is smarter!!! Everything windows does is (IMHO) broken. That's my point. However, DOS doesn't have a problem with taking media out whenever, as long as it doesn't have the light on. I've never had DOS ask for a different disk (except for individual applications which ask for the disk they need, not the last one in.) The bottom line I'm getting at here is the idea that these machines are here for our effective use. They make plenty of mistakes, always have and always will. So do we, of course, but /we/ are the ones paying for our /own/ mistakes, whereas if we give the machine power over the decisions, presuming it is infallible, /we/ pay for /its/ mistakes. If I'm paying for a mistake, it damn well better be a mistake I made. One thing I've learned in life, don't put yourself in a position of depending on someone else unless you're sure they'll come through. By that token, I also hate others depending on me because if I don't come through, somebody else is paying. I should be the only one paying for my mistakes, and only for mine. = Fish of Borg Visit me on the web! http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Frontier/4874/stccg.html ///Archaeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what appears to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated in Bonn. If genuine it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read To my Darling Candy. All Characters portrayed within this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.///Red Dwarf __ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com
Re: Soft ejects
Fish == Fish Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It is not only newbies that can make stupid mistakes, and remove a floppy disk that is currently mounted... Fish I was taught in kindergarten /never/ to remove a disk when Fish the light was on, and I never do it. Removing while it is Fish mounted but not currently being read or written isn't very Fish damaging--you just get an error message, have to unmount and Fish remount. This seems to have changed since a last checked it. Previously, when the disk is mounted, and you have made changes to the disk, then those changes will be cached inside the kernel (including updates to the FAT and directory entries). (I think something must be written immediately, or this disk wouldn't be currupted). If you remove the disk before the kernel gets a chance to complete these updates, the kernel will realize the disk has changed and flush its buffers, and you end up with a currupted disk. Even if you remember 1 second after removing the disk, it was still 1 second too late. At least, that was been my experience. There wont be any warnings that the disk is currupted either, unless you check it with a filesystem checker. However, I see you are now correct. Now data is written to the disk almost immediately (1 second delay) after it is dirty. This means the developers have put the safety of the disk ahead of performance issues... I don't know about the error message that forces you to remount the disk - I never got that myself. -- Brian May [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Soft ejects
Disclaimer: Some of this can probably be interpreted as flame bait. So let 'er rip =) I've hever been able to open a CD drive without unmounting the volume -- the drawer won't open. Along the same linesthis is the one mechanism of mac/sun/other(?) floppies that I would like to see somehow on x86 machines. I would much rather have a 'soft' eject button like on a cdrom or a software eject like the mac/sun floppies rather than a mechanical eject like on the x86 floppies. Okay, you want the machine is smarter deal. shouldn't you be on a Windoze list instead of here? =} Does anybody know the fundemental reasons why the x86 platform has not adopted such a setup? Because it bloody sux. I need to power up my bloody machine just to take the bloody disc out, and if something goes wrong and I can't umount, I have to stick a GD pin in the manual eject hole. Heaven forbid that my floppy drive should ever suffer the same fate. The bottom line is, it isn't appropriate for my machine to be making decisions as to whether it is appropriate to eject a dis(k/c) or not. I should be making those decisions because the machine is unreliable and if I make a bad decision then I, as the user, am the one who has to pay for my ignorance. Many windows users are uncomfortable with this idea, and that is perfectly sensical. (don't think that word exists, but hey, opposite of nonsensical, right?) They ought to just stick to windows, the inferior system that doesn't let you make mistakes (or intelligent decisions) and instead makes them for you. Unlike many others, I don't share the view that linux needs to be made more newbie friendly. Doing that will kill everything that made it great, and turn it into another Windoze. I don't care if the entire world doesn't all use GNU systems, as long as I have them to get my work done. If somebody doesn't understand, I will be helpful and try to explain, but if they don't want to tolerate a system with a learning curve then they don't have to use it, and probably don't deserve to. Leave this domain to those of us who do care to learn. This is personal preference, of course, but I hate the soft button setup. To me it seems to be one of those the machine is smarter than the operator type deals, and, in general, my machine isn't smarter than me (note the in general;). My SGI is entirely soft button. If it crashes sometimes I can't even turn the power off on it, I end up having to unplug the stupid thing to reset it! There are many times when I need to eject even tho' my comp thinks I shouldn't. There are times in Word when I need to use a lowercase letter /i/ as a word but it doesn't think I should. This is precisely the reason we go to alternatives to M$, because M$ software always thinks it's smarter than we are and never is. So don't go bringing M$isms to us and our alternatives, please. Of course it wouldn't be a determining factor on my decision to buy a machine, but it would be a factor. It would be a determining factor in my decision. I don't want a bloody M$ I know what you want better than you do style system, in hardware or software. (the only macs I'm interested in are the ones without internal floppy drives, so that isn't an issue here. If the cd drive doesn't want to eject, well no worse than an x86) Oh, and pardon my expletives. =} = Fish of Borg Visit me on the web! http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Frontier/4874/stccg.html ///Archaeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what appears to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated in Bonn. If genuine it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read To my Darling Candy. All Characters portrayed within this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.///Red Dwarf __ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com
Re: Soft ejects (was Re: umount - URGENT)
Gary Hennigan said: My SGI is entirely soft button. If it crashes sometimes I can't even turn the power off on it, I end up having to unplug the stupid thing to reset it! That's excessive, of course, but I'd like to see something along the lines of the option on most ATX BIOSes to have a manual poweroff require you to hold in the power button for 4 seconds. This prevents you from absent-mindedly turning it off at a Bad Time, while still allowing a 'manual override' if your OS crashes. The same concept applies to disks, etc. (I don't like to think about all the times I've switched floppies, tried to mount the new one, and discovered that I forgot to unmount the previous disk...) The problem here, though, is that if something manages to crash the BIOS (or internal drive circuitry) controlling the sticky button, you're SOL again, just like with your SGI. But those sorts of things tend to not crash, so I doubt that it's a major problem. -- Geek Code 3.1: GCS d- s+: a- C++ UL++$ P L++ E- W--(++) N+ o+ !K w---$ O M- !V PS+ PE Y+ PGP t 5++ X+ R++ tv- b++ DI D G e* h+ r++ y+
