Re: [gentoo-user] PATA vs SATA kernel driver (was: 4 machines - no /dev/cdrom or /dev/dvd anymore)

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Raffaele BELARDI wrote:
> On 01/07/2013 08:35 AM, Dale wrote:
>> As I understand it, /dev/hdxx is no longer
>> supported on current kernels.  All hard drives are /dev/sdxx and optical
>> drives are /dev/sr0(1,2,3,4 etc).
> Not true, I'm using /dev/hd for all my PATA HD and DVD drives and
> /dev/sd for the SATA HDs. Systems are ~amd64.
>
> At the time /dev/sr was introduced I tried it and had problems on the
> DVD burner (I don't recall which ones, maybe just related to the missing
> /dev/dvd link) so I decided to stick with the old driver.
>
> Is there any advantage to switch to the SATA driver also for PATA drives?
>
> raffaele
>


Did you see this in menuconfig:

< > ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support **(DEPRECATED)**

The last entry on the change log I found on my 3.5.3 kernel was this:

 * 4.61  Jan 22, 2004    - support hardware sector sizes other than 2kB,
 *              Pascal Schmidt <der.eremit@email.de>

If you look at the ide.txt file, it still shows kernel version 2.6 so it
has not been updated to show it is in a series 3 kernel.  Since this is
depreciated, which generally means no longer maintained, you are using
very old drivers that are no longer maintained.  According to the
changelog, it has not been touched since 2004. 

I would think one huge advantage to switching would be drivers that are
maintained.  It may work but what if it has a problem that you don't see
yet?

I'm sure there are people on this list that are MUCH more familiar with
kernels that can answer your question with even more details but I found
that in less than five minutes on my own system.  I didn't even need
google.  So, unless some other more knowledgeable kernel guru comes
along, I would suggest you start using drivers that are not so
outdated.  I only have a regular desktop and my life doesn't rely on it
but I would not use drivers that far out of date that are marked
depreciated.  I certainly wouldn't when newer and maintained drivers are
so easily available in the same kernel.

Hope that helps.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!