Re: Ideas for v2.1

Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de)
12 Jun 1996 00:45:11 GMT


Aaron Tiensivu (tiensivu@pilot.msu.edu) wrote:

: We all get to play while Linus is away. :) Hipsters unite.
: Ideas for 2.1 (subtitled "Things that make you go, hmmmm...") :

: o Adaption of all the CD-ROM drivers to use the generic interface.

Sounds like "take a screw driver and make all CDROM drives IDE/ATAPI".

: o Drivers being able to throw away their init. code once complete.

Yes, to save several 100s of whole bytes with average 10 drivers; could
almost be 2-5 kbytes per system. Could be really important one or two
days before someone wants to get 0x86 running without any main memory.

: o Very trivial, but a global min/max function [I notice in a lot of spots, they
: are implemented per .c file with a note usually saying "Why isn't there a
: global function for this?"]

Don't forget the general argument parser for INLINE macros.

: o Ability to nuke source code that is not specific to your configuration.
: Not necessarily a default option, but an option, none-the-less.

Yes, a one-byte kernel really would fit into the master boot record.

: o Uploading various patches to ftp.lmh.ox.ac.uk for a centralized deposit.

You mean directly at everybody's door? Everything?

: o Only re-make modules if necessary

Supposed to work already.

: o Fix the boot-up display so that "kswap started" doesn't appear in the
: partition check.

Lately I heard an interesting definition of "multi user ability" from
someone who got drunken by DOS/Windows: "totally different users may
utilize the same machine, right one after the other".

: What I'm currently working on:

: o Breaking sbpcd.c apart cleanly, per family.

Crazy. This can make me really unwilling, boy.
If you really want to do a "job" with sbpcd, take it apart and put it
together for supporting those damned Funai E24xx drives (in an "isolated"
version). They are mis-using the interface lines in a way which does not
allow "multiple families" on one cable.
You can get the full information you need. Even if you don't manage it
there is the hope that it would take you away from your stupid task.

sbpcd does not only support totally different drive families - it also is
supporting them alltogether on one cable. Currently, you can mix Matsushita
CR-521 plus Longshine LCS-7260 plus Panasonic CR-562 plus CreativeLabs CR-563
plus CreativeLabs CD200F plus Funai E2550 or MK4015 or 2800F plus Teac CD-55A
plus ECS-AT Vertos 100 up to a total of four one one cable, and you can
have up to four cables (more possible).

I did not assemble it to let it tear apart by playing kids, really.

Cheers -e

-- 
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