: On Thu, 8 Jan 1998, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
: > Sanity check time! Let's see if your "fix" would work.
Yes, let's have one..
: > bus 4 bits
16 controllers. OK...
: > unit 8 bits
256 devices per controller? SCSI??? Really? Wow!
: > LUN 8 bits
256 LUN's per SCSI ID? Gosh! 2.0.33 has 7 or 8 or 32 (depending on the
driver).
: > partition 6 bits
64 partitions per disk? Yikes! Few commercial OS's have that many
partitions per disk (Solaris allows 8), but OK... lets have 64 partitions.
And Mike's comments...
: And that is only for one controller. Now imagine having several of them.
: A 12GB or even larger root partition would be real fun.
Yup. Great sanity check. Let me help you into this long shirt which
does up at the back...
: I can already see the smile on the faces of the hard disc
: manufacturers.....
You sure made me smile.
Now, 16 controllers, 16 units (wide SCSI), 32 LUNs, 64 partitions makes
4 bits + 4 bits + 5 bits + 6 bits = 19 bits
Of course, _sane_ user space boot programs (such as those used in
Solaris or HPUX) to check and rebuild /dev on request (Solaris) or at each
boot (HPUX) would allow us to use 24 bit minor numbers, have a sufficiently
small /dev *AND* work. No /devfs required!
This is a USER SPACE problem, and not a kernel space one.
--
Stephen Harris
sweh@spuddy.mew.co.uk http://www.spuddy.org/
The truth is the truth, and opinion just opinion. But what is what?
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