Re: Accessing raw devices (was: write alignment matters?)

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:18:59 +0200
    From:        =?iso-8859-1?Q?Edgar_Fu=DF?= <ef%math.uni-bonn.de@localhost>
    Message-ID:  
<2F7D0C42-31B8-49E6-9F6D-3614598514CB%math.uni-bonn.de@localhost>

  | Given your analogy to accessing terminals, you would need an equivalent
  | of termcap.   Or, more reasonably, ioctls telling you the constraints
  | (alignment, max/min size, size quantisation etc.) of the device in question.

Yes, something like one of those (that is, either some form or user level
database, the old disktab file was almost that, or an in kernel database
if the amount of data was less and less variable).

We don't have that (disktab excepted) as we don't really need it, as it is
fairly easy to meet the expectations of everything we see in practice
(fsck manages, dd manages, ...)   But if it was needed, someone would
invent it.

kre