> This unkillable process/unusable device deadlock does occur for floppy
> drives and externally powered devices (eg Zip drives). In the latter
> case, the power supply to the Zip drive could accidentally be yanked
> out. If the user does not notice this, then a process that accesses the
> drive will cause the deadlock. A reboot will be necessary.
This should not happen! In the case of the Zip drive, the driver should
implement a timeout after which it returns an error to the process.
Am I the only one who thinks the kernel needs better error handling in
these cases?
> In the case of the floppy drive, if one does the DOS-ish thing of popping
> out a diskette and putting another in while the first is still mounted,
> then one not only gets the deadlock when accessing the floppy again, but
> also an Oops.
There's no oops, at least on 2.0.27, but there is a panic. And process
will deadlock as you've described.
+-----------------------+---------------------------------------+
| Nathan Bryant | Unsolicited commercial e-mail WILL be |
| nathan@burgessinc.com | charged an $80/hr proofreading fee. |
+-----------------------+---------------------------------------+