Re: binary kernel drivers re. hpt370 and redhat

[Alan Cox]

On Mer, 2003-08-27 at 22:57, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 18:40:30 -0400
> joe briggs <jbriggs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > I have a client who has a raid controller currently supported under windows, 
> > and now wants to support linux as a bootable device.  Currently, some of 
> > their trade secrets are contained in the driver as opposed to the controller

Standard practice - its not IMHO so much trade secrets as "improving the
barrier to vendor change" 8). Pretty much all of the older PATA
controllers don't actually do hardware raid but bios/driver raid - ie
its the equivalent (or roughly so) of the md layer but locks you into
the vendor. The notable exception here is the 3ware card (there are a 
couple of others too - Promise Supertrak100, SX6000)

We know some of these formats (eg see the hptraid driver in 2.4.2x)

> The problem is more in the bootloader (LILO or GRUB) would not no how
> to do raid. The /boot partition would have to be on a non-raid partition.
> Same problem if driver is statically linked in the kernel.

Plus little issues like the GPL 8)


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