Frank Dana wrote:
   The GENERIC system is supposed to "work on as many systems as possible"
   (says so right in the kernel config file). Well, async works on every sys-
   tem sync works on, plus a hell of a lot more. Do we need a better argument
   for defaulting to async?

   It would be great if sync worked. But it doesn't, and I don't think there's
   time left to iron out all of the problems.

I cannot stress too much that I don't want the SBIC driver to go back
to the original NetBSD-1.0 version.  However, I think it's
inappropriate for the default behaviour to be to turn on sync mode for
all devices, since there are clearly too many devices that lock up
when this happens.  I don't know if the ultimate solution is to
determine this at boot time, or to select it by controller/device when
building a kernel. If neither of these options is likely to be
implemented before the upcoming code freeze, then I think the only
solution is to disable sync mode, and let knowledgeable users rebuild
their kernel to turn it on (just the opposite of what I had to do).