Mass storage devices (Was:Re: Linux community software-update-anarchy polemic)
From: Wolf Kirchmeir (wwolfkir_at_sympatico.can)
Date: 01/18/04
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Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 17:19:47 -0500 (EST)
On 18 Jan 2004 05:43:23 -0800, Anonymous Coward wrote:
=>Anyway, please remember that my comment was only that a single
=>partition can be just as reliable as multiple ones if the software is
=>so written, not that contemporary software actually is so written. And
=>please remember that it's completely irrelevant to the issues raised
=>in my original post, issues which no one has yet addressed.
Granted. And IMO you addressed them. I'll give you my take
on them, which is that the issues you raise are merely
instances of a larger issue, not limited to Linux.
The larger issue is that the OS is expected to know about
file systems, partitions, disk architecture. IMO, there is
absolutely no need for any of that. All an OS needs to know
is a) how to communicate with a mass storage device; and b)
how to interpret whatever data it gets. Just how the source
stores or manipulates data is none of the OS's business; a
mass storage device can store the data any way it wants, so
long as it preserves the data format. Correct me if I'm
wrong, but data formats aren't the same thing as file
systems, and are definitely not the same as physical
encoding systems.
IOW, what we need are not plug-n-play drives, what we need
are smart drives. Same goes for CD-drives, etc. Mass
storage devices that use removable media, such as CDs etc,
need some common standards of course, so that different
drives can read any disk. But why should the OS have to
know how that data is stored on the CD? All the OS needs to
know is how to interpret the data, and for that all you
need is some standard data formats, not storage formats.
The irony is that there are smart storage devices - they
are attached to many home entertainment systems right now.
My DVD player can read and interpret a variety of CD and
DVD formats - clearly, the OS built into it is merely
interpreting the data formats read by the hardware. So why
can't I have the same ease of use and convenience with a
drive attached to a PC? Why must there be "drivers" for
different CD and DVD drives?
Why, IOW, are we saddled with a Stupid Idea? Recall that in
the Very Early Days, there were machines that used smart
drives. The Commodore did, and so did the Amiga, to name
two. The technology wasn't as smart as it could have been,
but Commodore did build a drive (the 1571 IIRC) that could
read floppy disks with different _physical_ encoding
schemes, which shows you just how OS independent the
Commodore drives really were. Then along came the PC - a
Giant Step Backward, IMO.
Bah!
-- Wolf Kirchmeir If you didn't want to go to Chicago, why did you get on the train? (Garrison Keillor) <just one w and plain ca for correct e-mail address>
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