Re: [BK PATCH] SCSI update for 2.6.3

[Greg KH]

On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 11:48:32PM +0200, Kai Makisara wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Patrick Mansfield wrote:
> 
> ...
> > Current 2.6 kernel default names are of the form: st[0-9]m[0-3][n]
> > 
> Actually more like  st[0-9]*m[0-9]*[n]
> 
> > Current /dev naming is of the form: [n]st[0-9][alm]
> > 
> Depends on who's /dev you are looking at.

How about everyone look at devices.txt as that is the LSB standard.

> > Should the st kernel names be changed to map to current /dev names?
> > 
> I don't think we should go back to the old names. The intention with the 
> "new" names was to make them easier to parse and handle than the old ones. 
> The number of modes is not always four. Anyone can compile st with more or 
> less modes. Using a number for the mode is naturally extensible. The 
> characters at the end of the old names had interpretations that may not be 
> correct in all cases (a=alternate, l=low density, m=medium density).
> 
> n has been put at the end of the name because now the tape names are 
> grouped together in a listing. I know this is a weak justification ;-)
> 
> > For udev, even with that we need differing pre and postfix values wrapped
> > around a peristent name.
> > 
> If I read udev correctly, it can now parse one number at the end of the 
> name. Something like st%md%n and nst%md%n could be used with eight rules 
> (where %m is the mode number and %n is the device number). Not very 
> convenient. Parsing the st names should really be able to extract at 
> least two fields. With an external program, anything can be done. Maybe 
> udev can some day do this internally.

Well, udev didn't think that anyone would do such a looney thing in
nameing devices :)

But yes, I'll be glad to fix up udev if you all fix up the tape sysfs
names to match device.txt.

thanks,

greg k-h
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