On Tue 31 Aug 1999, Wolfgang Solfrank wrote:

[ my reply to Chris about some disklabel thing ]
> > Since you name was is so many of the disklabel files I fear you are
> > authoritative in this ;-)
> 
> Hmm, not meaning to ignore Chris' effort in this :-), it is more or less
> the result of anyone taking parts of his disklabel code when porting to
> different platforms, not of he being involved in these porting efforts.

Heh, you read the smiley, didn't you? I had just been wading through a
bunch of files that all had Chris' name on the first page. You know, it's
that same effect what they are trying to accomplish with comercials ;-)

[ Chris argues to drop the in-core label on last close ]
> Hmm, IMHO it _is_ neccessary for disk drivers to remember in-core labels
> between all opens.  Anything else is IMHO "violating the principle of
> least surprise".  (BTW, wasn't it you, Chris, who did something very
> similar to this to the tty's parameters when you introduced the ttyflags
> utility?  IMHO, that's way more VTPOLS :-))

There is a difference between tty-parameters and a disklabel. The big one
being that incase of the tty-parameters, only the hardware keeps state. It
has no (seeable) software state like an in-core label. So unless the the
tty-hardware is explicitely modified, the parameters are OK. This is less
clear with disks (see the dd(1) example).

What interests me is how you think it should function. Like when does the
in-core label come into existence and when and how it gets wiped out...

Oh, on tech-kern a simular discussion popped up subject: 'sd rereads'.

Leo.