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Message-ID: <35042.98883.qm@web33207.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:38:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: jassi brar <jassi_singh_brar@...oo.com>
To: Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>
Cc: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: An idea .... with code
--- On Wed, 8/27/08, Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org> wrote:
> I fail to see what your patch generalizes? AFAIK it just
> adds a new
> more narrow (less features than the old one) interface to
> create loop devices.
Btw, my code is not a patch to the loop driver, its an altogether new module. May i daresay, it aims squarely at drivers/block/loop.c and mean to replace it altogether.
My module generalizes in the way that it doesn't add or make use of any ioctl. It doesn't even export a variable and makes uses only of what other subsystems provide for(block, sysfs, vfs).
As far as features are concerned, please suggest me what could be done with /dev/loop0 and not for /dev/vblk?
> But you're adding more code which is more intrusive?
To be exact, i mean to _replace_ driver/block/loop.c, and hence _remove_ all the loop specific ioctls and max# limitations, with drivers/block/vblk.c :D
> Your goal is to replace all ioctls with sysfs files?
Please do have a look at the code.
I add only one sysfs interface (manage), which when read returns the status of all the files being emulated and when written updates(add/remove) emulation of a file.
The interface could be made more useful by echo'ing in other parameters along with filename for example:
echo +[r/w]+[sects]+[cyls]+[heads]+[filename] > /sys/devices/virblk/manage
for specifyinf readonly, cylinders, heads, sectsize for the file to be emulated.
> If it's that then I'm going on the book as saying
> that's a bad idea, especially
> for this case. While ioctls have their problems they work
> quite well for many
> things. I don't see any particular reason why ioctls
> should not be used
> to configure loop devices.
I don't intend to revolt against the concept of ioctls. Being an embedded linux engineer I do understand the importance of ioctls: i declare one every other day for configuring custom h/w: Graphics and Multimedia esp so.
As for loop devices, i think we can make do without'em.
Regards,
-Jassi
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