On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Stephen Brown wrote:

> 
> I guess I've discovered two things then:
> 
> 1) NetBSD's version of dump could definitely use a smarter algorithm
>    for calculating tape capacity.  Most versions of unix that I've
>    used are fairly good at recognizing the amount of tape needed
>    for a dump.
> 
>    The actual density code should be returned by a mode sense of the
>    tape device.  If dump can(when using a local tape), ask the kernel
>    to give it the tape density, etc. through ioctl() calls then it would
>    be possible to do the tape calculations in a much more sane manner.
>    I'll take a look at this in more detail and see how easy it would
>    be to do...

Please look into this. My one caution is that with in-drive compression,
you can only gestimate how much you'll get on the tape. :-(

Take care,

Bill