Linux is not about choice [was Re: Fedora too cutting edge?]

Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Fri Jan 11 21:44:31 UTC 2008


Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> On Jan 11, 2008 2:30 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It doesn't seem as sensible as being able to plug into a known
>> controller position and get a known device name, particularly in the
>> scenario where the drives aren't hot-plug and you want to access a bunch
>> of new ones after a reboot and know which is which.
> 
> 
> Frankly i like this idea, but I'm unsure of the practicality of it:
> 
> What is the highest level which is even aware of the physical location
> of said device? I would imagine the BIOS knows, and maybe some really
> low level kernel modules but anything above that?

The bios doesn't necessarily know anything except for the one(s) that it 
might boot.  But I think there may be some extra magic in what the 
kernel does with the names depending on which drive bios used to boot. 
The stuff in /dev/disk/by-path might be useful for the versions that 
have it, but I can't see anything for the empty controller positions 
where the drives aren't connected so the arrangement doesn't make a lot 
of sense.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com




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