Re: 1.3.6[0-7] floppy driver broken

Ulrich Windl (Ulrich.Windl@rz.uni-regensburg.de)
Mon, 26 Feb 1996 09:31:53 +0100


On 25 Feb 96 at 12:25, David C. Niemi wrote:

> On Fri, 23 Feb 1996, Michael D. Black wrote:
> > At 06:04 PM 2/22/96 +0100, Michael Stiller wrote:
> > >i get the following errormessages on: 1.3.60 and 1.3.67
> > >toyland:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/fd0h1440
> > >dd: /dev/fd0h1440: No such file or directory
> > >2881+0 records in
> > >2880+0 records out
> >
> > Confirmed on 1.3.68 Slackware 3.0 also...
> > brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 2, 40 Apr 27 1995 /dev/fd0h1440
> >
> > Looks like somebody is returning a bogus error code...
>
> Perhaps the error could be more enlightening, but it is almost certainly
> not bogus.
>
> Probably the most accurate error code would be "no such device" or "i/o
> error". But I'd be *really* surprised if that command worked for you in

Sorry, ENOSPC (No space left on device) would be the best error; the
driver really knows why the write failed. I/O error could still mean
that some clever hardware detected a write fault.

> previous kernel revs, considering that fd0h1440 is a rare 5.25" format in
> your first drive (which should be a 3.5" unless you have a very old
> machine). You probably should just use "/dev/fd0" to let the kernel

You can flip drives as you like (I actually did that starting with
5.25" being A: (/dev/fd0))

> figure out what density the disk is. If you need the explicit device for

Unfortunately the algorithm isn't perfect (probes only few formats).

> some odd reason, you should have either /dev/fd0u1440 or /dev/fd0H1440
> depending on the vintage of your system.
>
> PLEASE. If you suspect a bug in the new development kernels, test it with
> a production kernel first (i.e. 1.2.13), and read the documentation to be
> sure that this is not how it is *supposed to* work.

I think this bug report is justified.

> David.Niemi@mail.li.org---niemidc@clark.net---703-904-3596---Reston, VA USA
> Much of human misery derives from two overgeneralizations: if something is
> good, more is always better; and what is good for me is good for everyone.

Ulrich