[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#426224: Bug#426224: The fix for SATA disk shutdown introduced a new bug for some IDE hard disks

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Fri, 04 Apr 2008, Hubert Verstraete wrote:
> This is probably because this Flush Cache command is not supported by my 
> hard disk model; another IDE hard disk I tried did not have this issue.

We can't affort to add a blacklist to this, I think.  It will not be
effectively maintained.  But the kernel already HAS one, since it needs to
be able to flush disks.  Time to get an IOCTL to *flush* disks and use THAT
instead of ever sending any ATA commands?

We really, really should not be sending ANY ATA taskfiles to get the
functionality needed for halt/reboot in this day and age, dammit :-)  If the
whole ridiculous crap with the disk shutdown issues in the kernel have
teached us something, it is THAT.

So let's rip out any taskfile commands from our infrastructure, and use only
*generic function* IOCTLs.  If any are missing, let's work to add them.
There is no other way to fix all these issues for good.  It is the kernel
who has to know how to sync or stop disks, not userspace.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh